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Cara Putman
Mitch E. Daniels, Jr. School of BusinessCara Putman, clinical assistant professor and director of the Brock-Wilson Center for Women in Management, was selected for the Daniels Excellence in Instruction award in 2021 as a lecturer.
A member of the School of Business law, communications, and ethics instructional team, Putman was praised in the nomination by her students for her engaging instruction, use of relatable, real-world examples, and support of their learning.
Putman teaches undergraduate, Study Abroad, and graduate courses, oversees graduate and undergraduate research projects through independent study, and is a faculty mentor for student research related to Honors Medallion and Contract scholarly projects. She has published jointly with her students and is a frequent presenter at legal scholar conferences. She serves on numerous undergraduate committees and as an advisor to student organizations.
Putman was the inaugural School of Business Honors director and created an HONR 299 special topics course on personal leadership that connects students with outstanding leaders on and outside of campus. This was no easy feat during the pandemic, but the course continued successfully with virtual and recorded guest speakers.
She also led a team that redesigned MGMT 254 Legal Foundations of Business through the IMPACT process. In transitioning 254 to the Brightspace learning management system, the team also prepared it for the move to hybrid delivery during the pandemic. A cultural competency course, MGMT 331 Development of EEOC Law, was also transformed through IMPACT by Putman. She continues to mentor new instructors, helping them build Brightspace shells and syllabi, creating detailed teaching guides, and meeting with them regularly.
In nominating her, the School of Business made special note of Putman’s efforts to help students struggling with anxiety during the pandemic, including moving office hours outdoors so she could continue to meet with students face-to-face as well as virtually. She also received the school’s Alumni Teaching Excellence Award in Course Delivery.
How has your teaching evolved over the last five years?
I also take advantage of IMPACT programming and faculty reading groups (hosted by Innovative Learning) to build my toolkit of techniques and strategies to keep my classes as student-focused and engaged as possible. In Fall 2022, Dr. Kelly Blanchard and I expanded this by starting a faculty reading group at the School of Business, and faculty engagement has been high.
What changes to your teaching during the pandemic did you take with you going forward?
I’ve also thought long and hard about how we assess students in a core course I oversee. We’ve diversified how we assess in a way that I think works as a compromise from fully online assessments and full in-class assessments. I also created a semester-long business law simulation used in all sections that allows students to work in teams to apply what they are learning to a fictional company they have created. This allows them to see real-world applications of what can otherwise feel very theoretical and disjointed. But I’ll keep tweaking to see what works best for student learning.
What suggestions do you have to Purdue instructors who want to improve their teaching and/or their students’ learning?
What motivates you to do your best work in a student-centered learning environment?
I also love taking a class that many dread and turning it into their favorite course. I take that as a personal challenge, and the reward is reading on evaluations again and again how this became their favorite class at Purdue.
The Excellence in Instruction Award for Lecturers recognizes academic staff with the rank of lecturer or senior lecturer. It is among several PWL-wide teaching honors awarded annually in the spring semester. Each college/school selects and advances its own nominee the previous fall as a model in outstanding undergraduate education and includes input from its students. For other nominee interviews, see the Insights webpage. Further details on the award and selection procedure and university awardees are available on the Office of the Provost website.