Two SDSU Global Campus lecturers are among a distinguished group recently recognized by SDSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) with a new award for excellence in lecturer teachers.
Brittnie Bloom, who teaches in the School of Public Health, and Irina Potapova, who is an instructor in the School of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, were among the faculty lecturers who were awarded for demonstrating excellent commitment to student learning, pedagogical innovation, and educational impact. After receiving over 50 applications, the CTL selected six instructors who inspire, engage, and transform their students’ academic and personal development.
We reached out to both instructors to learn more about what teaching means to them.
1. What first inspired you to want to be a teacher?
Potapova: I love being a student, so I’m very happy to stay in the educational environment. As an instructor, I love thinking about how to share information so that it lands and feels relevant.
Bloom: I grew up with significant instability as a young child and adolescent; school was always my safe place where I could grow, share, and thrive. Growing up, while most of my teachers loved my excitement for learning, they may not have loved how opinionated I sometimes was in a classroom setting. For example, in my favorite teacher’s class (Señor Sanchez’s AP Spanish class), I would provide feedback on how an assignment or in-class activity could have been more engaging or less complicated. Before I graduated, he told me, “Brittnie, mark my words, one day you will become a teacher yourself and you’ll understand how hard this really is!” He was right. I’ve been so incredibly lucky to have had excellent mentors and teachers throughout my academic journey: the impact they have had on my life is what first inspired me to become a teacher.
2. What was your initial reaction to finding out you’d received the award?
Potapova: I feel really grateful to receive this award! The application included statements of support from colleagues in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and I appreciate the support I have here.
Bloom: I was THRILLED. Lecturers do a lot of heavy lifting in academic settings, and we are rarely recognized for the work we do. It felt really beautiful to be recognized and supported by my colleagues for my commitment to student learning and educational impact. I am proud to be part of an institution that has created an award that highlights the effort and commitment of lecturers within our university community. I give my all in the classroom every single semester; This award felt like a big win and confirmation that my efforts are noticed and appreciated.
3. How does it feel being a recipient of this award in its inaugural year?
Potapova: I’m so excited to see more dedicated spaces to recognize lecturers on campus –thank you to everyone at the CTL and University that made this possible! I’m excited to meet the other award recipients and see how this award continues to go in future years.
Bloom: It feels great to be an inaugural winner! I hope this award is offered for many years to come and that other mechanisms are created that allow for the recognition of the diverse and multifaceted ways that lecturers lift our pedagogical excellence in the classroom, support our students while they are enrolled at SDSU and beyond, and support SDSU’s research and education infrastructure by allowing tenure track faculty the ability to focus on their passions outside of the classroom. We are a diverse and talented workforce. I’m thrilled to be offered this award alongside some really incredible and talented educators.
4. You’ve been a lecturer here for between 4-6 years, how have you been able to grow during your time here at SDSU?
Potapova: I appreciate all the resources at SDSU to support teaching! Trainings at the Center for Teaching & Learning and the Center for Inclusive Excellent have helped me consistently improve my teaching approach. I like to try new things, keep what works, and keep revising if something doesn’t work as well as I hoped!
Bloom: I love San Diego State University, and growth has been a cornerstone of my experience on this campus. For context, I’m a two-time SDSU graduate (B.A. in Psychology and English in 2011; PhD in Public Health in 2021), a longtime employee of SDSU (Program Manager in the College of Sciences from 2011-2012 and 2014-2018), and for the last 6 years I have served as a lecturer in the School of Public Health. I have grown up on this campus: it has seen some of my happiest and most challenging moments. In my tenure here, I feel most of my growth has come by saying “yes” to opportunities when they have been presented to me whenever I can. For example, as I was finishing up my PhD (and in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic), I was approached to serve as the instructor of record for our undergraduate Public Health Program Evaluation course. Saying “yes” to that opportunity was a huge stretch for me at that moment in my life, but it forced me to build a class from scratch and figure out how to teach it online for 150+ students (and then figure out how to reverse engineer it to teach it back in person a year later). The Program Evaluation class has led to other teaching opportunities both at the undergraduate and graduate level, which I have enjoyed greatly. Finally, I have to say that our undergraduate SPH students have really supported my growth in the best way. Their interests have changed so much in recent years (from communicable diseases and COVID-19 in 2020, to LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights in 2026). As instructors we must stay agile and flexible in order to support them in exploring their interests and supporting their goals along the way!
5. How do you plan to continue to grow as an educator in the coming years?
Potapova: I want to keep refining my courses so they’re clear, rigorous, and genuinely useful. At the same time–speech-language pathology is growing and changing rapidly as a field. It will be important to keep rethinking and revisiting what we are covering in our classes.
Bloom: As an educator, if you aren’t growing every semester, then you aren’t paying enough attention. I learn something new about my students, my teaching, and my class content every single semester: I use my course evaluations and feedback (the good and the bad) to improve my class content, structure, assignments and how I approach and interact with my students. This self-evaluation process forces me to learn and grow every semester. I also feel like I cannot answer this question without acknowledging the growth that is being forced upon all educators as a result of AI being unleashed across our university system. As a workforce of educators, we are being forced to grow quickly… in my opinion, too quickly, robbing us of the opportunity to thoughtfully apply what we know about the scientific method, learning pedagogy, and classroom best practices to our courses. This is a tough time to be in education and navigate these changes while upholding learning objectives and standards in our courses; however, I remain committed to our students and their learning and understand this challenge as another opportunity to grow as an educator.
6. What is the most rewarding part about teaching for you?
Potapova: Hearing from students is the best part of teaching! A quick email saying they used something from class in real life (in a clinical practicum, in another class, just in their day-to-day life) gives me fuel for the whole semester.
Bloom: Hands down, our students. I work in the School of Public Health and I take such pride in knowing that I’m helping develop our future doctors, nurses, and public health professionals. Getting emails from students after they have entered the workforce or graduate school and hearing that what they learned in my class helped them lead a project, develop a new protocol, or build an evaluation for a community in need makes my educator heart sing. This demonstrates to me that education IS public health; I love hearing about my students living their best lives out in the real world applying what they have learned at SDSU in their new roles as public health professionals in diverse settings.
