teaching
In the classroom I aim to create an intellectually challenging yet supportive learning environment. I regularly incorporate interactive seminar-style discussion and lecture-style teaching depending on the classroom setting and course needs. I have experience teaching courses in the social sciences across several institutions (Emory University's Oxford College and the University of Notre Dame, primarily), with 180+ teaching evaluations. The median score on a 5-point scale is 5, and the mean is 4.3. The full teaching reviews are available here.
In addition, I volunteer to teach short courses once per year when there is a need in alignment with my social justice goals, e.g. for Common Good Atlanta and for Stanford University's Hope House Scholars program. My most formative teaching experience was a year-length, full-time teaching in the social sciences for the Shanti Bhavan Children's Project, which included preparation for India's national 10th and 12th grade exams and topics that spanned from Ghandi and Shakespeare to economics and the European Union.
A full list of university courses I have taught are available in my CV.
Some qualitative excerpts from my student reviews:
"Ms. Shiraef is a fantastic professor who inspires students to seek knowledge voraciously, make
connections, and ask difficult questions. Her course stands out to me in my Emory experience for
how fulfilling and thought-provoking it was. I have barely taken any classes at Emory where I
didn't think about and use the knowledge I learned in POLS101. In addition to my experience
with Professor Shiraef in the classroom setting, her commitment to teaching particularly shines
through in the long-term relationship-building she has done with students. With just one year
spent at Oxford, I know Ms. Shiraef has a billion students who would happily share
positive experience after positive experience with her. She has impacted many lives at Emory
and has continued to work with and keep in contact with many former students. Professor
Shiraef's teaching empowers students to seek their own answers and she would be a wonderful
permanent edition to an intellectual community."
– Student in Introduction to Political Science, Emory University (Oxford)
“My experience as Mary Shiraef’s student shaped a large portion of my character as both a
university student and a global citizen. Mary emphasized, over all else, productive dialogue and
representing another’s argument with clarity and fairness. Aside from how her guidance has (and
continues to) improve my writing, this emphasis on interpretation – although I aim to become an
empirical researcher in Biology – has left a long-standing impression in my life and work. I
cannot imagine how differently I would approach theory had I not been granted the opportunity
to learn from her. Her focus is on not only the success but also the growth of her students.”
– Student in Modern Political Thought, Emory University (Oxford)
Some excerpts from references about my teaching:
“I had the pleasure of working with Mary Shiraef while she was a visiting faculty at Oxford
College of Emory University. I was also able to observe her in the classroom. I was immediately
impressed by the depth of student engagement in her courses, their challenge and rigor, as well
as the amount she genuinely cares about the success of her students. It’s no wonder she had
consistently high teaching evaluations. What’s more, despite being a visiting faculty member, she
was deeply engaged in the life of Oxford including college-wide faculty meetings, active
participation in our divisional mentoring programs. She is the kind of faculty member any
college that cares about teaching would strive to obtain.”
– Prof. Kenneth Carter, Emory
University (Oxford College)
“Mary is a gifted teacher. She was a TA in my first-year course on World Politics a few years
ago, and I was consistently impressed with both the creativity and insight that she brought to her
discussion sections as well as her unflagging devotion to her students’ welfare. As a student of
both political theory and comparative politics, Mary has the capacity to bring ideas to life in their
concrete settings while, at the same time, challenging students to imagine the creation of better,
more just worlds amidst the messiness and injustice of contemporary political affairs. In
particular, I recall a lecture on the subject of immigration that she gave to our class in which she
managed to capture the tragic experiences of people on the move from one state to another while
simultaneously provoking students with the idea that this was not the way that the world had to
be organized.”
– Prof. James McAdams, University of Notre Dame
“Mary Shiraef was a truly excellent teaching assistant and editorial assistant for me during the
pandemic year of 2020-21. She served as managing editor of a digital journal of my students'
papers (pandemic memoirs that engaged plague literature alongside their own experiences of
Covid-19). She did a great job producing a professional-quality journal and encouraging the
students to publish their best writing.”
– Prof. Eileen M. Hunt Botting, University of Notre Dame
“Ms. Shiraef is quite simply and quite clearly one of the best teaching assistants it has been my
fortune to have. She is more than a teaching assistant. I have found that she is actually teaching
the material to the students. Moreover, she has a knack or gift for being able to combine her
obvious fluency with the material and yet not generate feelings of resentment or envy in the
students she is helping. In other words, the students never feel as if they are being patronized. In
part, this seems to me due to her disarming lack of defensiveness. She knows quite a lot for a
student in her position, but she never feels the need to hide the fact that she might not know
something. She simply, honorably, and truthfully announces that she is not sure of the answer
and that she will check on what is correct with me. She then proceeds to do precisely that, and to
get back to the students with whom she was working. It is evident to me that the students
appreciate her demeanor and her complete lack of dissimulation. I would also like to emphasize
that Ms. Shiraef has had particular success with teaching students from diverse backgrounds,
always being able to put them at their ease. I can only reiterate that working with Ms. Shiraef in
this role has been a great pleasure for me.”
– Prof. Bill Shapiro, Emory University (Oxford)