Celebrating excellence: W&M’s 2025 Charter Day awards
Two students and two faculty members will be recognized at William & Mary’s Charter Day ceremony on Feb. 7 for their outstanding achievements and contributions to the community.
This year’s honorees are:
- Thomas Jefferson Award: Bella Ginzbursky-Blum, Teaching Professor of Russian Studies
- Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award: Phil Wagner, Clinical Associate Professor in Organizational Behavior
- Thomas Jefferson Prize in Natural Philosophy: Yigit K. Simsek ’25
- James Monroe Prize in Civic Leadership: Alison Mayer ’25
In addition to being recognized during Charter Day, they will be celebrated during a special ceremony on Jan. 31 at 4 p.m. in Miller Hall’s Brinkley Commons. That event will also include an announcement about this year’s Plumeri Award recipients.
Thomas Jefferson Award: Bella Ginzbursky-Blum
Bella Ginzbursky-Blum’s many titles — teaching professor, advisor to the Russian Language House, director of W&M’s study abroad program in St. Petersburg, Russia, co-director of Project Global Officer — don’t fully capture why her colleagues nominated her for this year’s Thomas Jefferson Award. But this might: Not even a war can keep Ginzbursky-Blum from her mission to provide top-notch instruction to students.
“Professor Ginzbursky-Blum has distinguished herself for over three decades as an award-winning teacher, a beloved mentor, an innovative leader and a formidable force for internationalization,” wrote nominators from the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. “To say that she ‘exceeds expectations’ is a huge understatement given the complexity of her tasks and the utmost care and attention she gives to them.”
For these efforts, Ginzbursky-Blum will receive W&M’s 2025 Thomas Jefferson Award, which is presented for significant service through personal activities, influence and leadership.
“There are other people more deserving of this than me,” she said.
Not so, say her colleagues, who praised her long office hours, her full course load, her willingness to take on more responsibilities and her commitment to innovation and to maintaining relationships with alumni.
“Bella’s staggering levels of teaching and service almost defy the imagination,” wrote Francie Cate, MLL chair. “Everything about her record belies her long-held position as a non-tenured teaching professor. Many faculty members will never accomplish such a brilliant record of service, much less teaching six courses per year while serving as Language House advisor every single year, supervising international fellows, managing alumni events on campus, planning Homecoming activities and keeping our internal and externally funded study-abroad programs alive and running in far-flung locales.”
Ginzbursky-Blum immigrated to the United States from Russia in 1981 at age 15. She attended high school in the Bronx, New York, before enrolling at the State University of New York at Stonybrook where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Slavic studies.
“I had an amazing professor who taught pedagogical courses and the structure and history of the Russian language,” she said. “I was really inspired by her and her work.”
She brought her talents to Williamsburg in 1992 as an instructor. People who have taken a class in Russian at William & Mary over the past three decades have likely studied under Ginzbursky-Blum. She teaches Russian every day.
Those classes were life-changing for Jacob Lassin ’13, who has a doctorate in Slavic literature from Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. Now a professor himself, he came to William & Mary in 2009 hoping to learn a new language.
“I took Latin in high school, so I wanted a living language. My first choice was German, but it was full,” Lassin recalled. “I ended up in Bella’s class, and she not only taught me Russian, she opened up the whole culture to me. I took other classes with her. She convinced me to go to Russia. It set the course of what I would do for my life.”
In the 32 years since she arrived in Williamsburg, Ginzbursky-Blum’s title has changed several times — from instructor to lecturer to senior lecturer to teaching professor — and her list of responsibilities has grown: director of the study abroad program in St. Petersburg, Russia, advisor to the Russian Language House since it opened in 2002, advisor to the W&M chapter of the Dobro Slovo National Honor Society, which she started in 1994, and, most recently, co-director of Project Global Officer.
It was during her work with Project Global Officer that war tried to get in the way of her educational imperatives.
In 2022, an MLL faculty team headed up by professors Michael Hill and Alexander Prokhorov won a federal grant to develop a study-abroad program for ROTC cadets in the critical languages of Chinese and Russian.
Ginzbursky-Blum and Prokhorov traveled to Vilnius, Lithuania, for a site study. “We talked about where the students would live and eat, where the classes would take place. It was a great trip, professionally,” Ginzbursky-Blum recalled.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine. On their last night in Lithuania, the W&M professors were notified by the Department of Defense that all summer study-abroad programs in the Baltics were canceled, including theirs. “We were looking at each other with our mouths open, like, what do we do now?” she said.
“We started thinking, what kind of cultural content could we provide so that it would still be an immersive and culturally rich experience, and it wasn’t just asking a federal agency to permit us to switch from abroad to domestic, but also asking William & Mary, could we house the students in the Russian House over the summer? Could we have classroom space?” Ginzbursky-Blum recalled. “We had a rough spring setting it up, but once we did, it went superbly well.”
They worked with W&M’s Studio for Learning and Teaching Innovation to “bring” the cadets to Russia using virtual reality headsets.
“It took them a while, the whole group, to figure out things like how to get to Red Square. But once they got there, you could hear this audible ‘wow’ from the students, which was just an amazing moment for me, because we didn’t know how this was going to go,” she said.
The Jefferson Award is not Ginzbursky-Blum’s first major recognition. In 2019, she won the Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, a national recognition of her contributions.
“She has made William & Mary a better and more interesting place for the past three decades,” wrote her colleagues in their nomination letter. “There is no doubt that her work changes the lives of our students.”
Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award: Phil Wagner
Phil Wagner, a clinical associate professor in organizational behavior, sees the classroom not just as an educational space, but a place for students to better understand one another regardless of their background.
Wagner exudes such positive energy about the work he does for William & Mary at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business and the Washington Center, it came as no surprise to colleagues that he is the 2024 recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award. The award, given annually, recognizes a “teaching member of the W&M community who has demonstrated, through concern as a teacher and through character and influence, the inspiration and stimulation of learning to the betterment of the individual and society as exemplified by Thomas Jefferson.”
Wagner, who joined W&M in 2020, teaches several courses focused on identity and the workplace, placing students’ experiences and stories at the forefront, allowing them to navigate big ideas through a personal lens. One of his courses was so sought-after that he had to open up a second section to meet demand.
“Teaching is not something that I take lightly,” he said. “My life was changed because good teachers saw potential in me and coached that out of me. I know that a classroom can be a life-changing space, so (receiving this) is just incredibly humbling.”
As the student-facing coordinator of Inclusive Excellence initiatives in the Mason School, Wagner helps ensure that all students in the Mason School of Business graduate programs emerge with targeted and advanced training in inclusion-oriented leadership communication.
Wagner also secured the first permanent source of consistent funding for Mason’s Inclusive Excellence initiatives, developed a series of trainings across campus — including Safe Zone, Green Zone, Story Lab and Inclusive Excellence — and crafted the annual Social Impact Lecture Series for incoming graduate students.
One of Wagner’s fondest memories since joining William & Mary was when Associate Director of the Washington Center Erin Battle ’13, M.Ed. ’15, sent out a call for course proposals. With Wagner still new to the university and looking to carve his own path, he sent out a pitch for his Identity, Power and Profit class. His class was approved, and he now teaches the course as a winter seminar.
“Professor Wagner is, simply put, a joy to work with,” Battle wrote in her nomination. “He problem-solves with an unrivaled collaborative spirit and truly puts our students first in everything that he does inside the classroom. … He epitomizes everything we hope our faculty to be.”
Wagner says he fell into the profession by accident. The first of his family to move out of his geographic area and pursue advanced degrees, he attempted several fields until the academic enterprise “clicked” for him. He received his doctorate from the University of Kansas and started at Liberty University as a graduate teaching and research assistant. Throughout his career, he has consistently led with openness and mutual understanding.
“I had the privilege of taking three courses led by Professor Wagner,” wrote Alisa Whitehead, M.B.A. ’24. “I can confidently say he is one of the most dedicated and inspiring educators I have ever encountered. His passion, dedication and commitment to his students inside and outside of the classroom is consistent and sincere.”
“Teaching is just constant professional development,” Wagner said. “I am constantly exploring new ideas, and I’m constantly seeking out new insights.”
This summer, Wagner will teach a corporate wellness course focusing on mental health and well-being in the workplace. He was inspired to it because of conversations with students and current projections showing the workplace wellness industry booming in the next five years.
“Phil clearly embodies the qualities of care, dedication and intellectual rigor that are hallmarks of the Jefferson Teaching Award,” wrote Inga Carboni, associate professor of business. “As an early-career faculty member, he has already made significant contributions to the William & Mary community, not only in terms of his teaching but also through his service and commitment to fostering an inclusive and intellectually vibrant environment.”
Thomas Jefferson Prize in Natural Philosophy: Yigit K. Simsek ’25
By Laura Grove
Yigit K. Simsek ’25 melds superior academic performance with excellence in scientific research and enthusiasm for mentoring classmates. Simsek, a double major in biology and mathematics, plans to pursue an academic career in order to share his passion for molecular biology with the next generation of scientists while he continues to conduct his own research and contribute to scholarly conversations.
“Molecular biology is the language of life,” he said. “It provides us with the tools to question and understand ourselves and our environment in the most fundamental ways. The field itself elegantly weaves together the important truths we have uncovered across all disciplines of science.”
Simsek is this year’s recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Prize in Natural Philosophy, which is awarded to an exceptional undergraduate student. The prize recognizes excellence in the sciences and honors the relationship between Jefferson and his William & Mary tutor in mathematics and natural sciences, Professor William Small.
“Yigit is curious and loves science, which are great characteristics for a young, budding scientist to have,” said Simsek’s academic advisor, Professor of Biology Shantá D. Hinton. “He is a gem in our department. His accomplishments, spirit, and love of science are the essence of the Thomas Jefferson Prize.”
Chancellor Professor of Biology Lizabeth A. Allison has mentored Simsek in the lab for three years.
“He is clearly in his element and the happiest when at the lab bench,” she said, “always eager to add new dimensions to his project, performing additional replicates to ensure that his data are robust and reproducible, and that his cell images and western blots are of the highest quality.”
Simsek is a Beckman scholar and the first author on a recently published study in a prestigious international journal. The paper has important implications for understanding the molecular underpinnings of resistance to thyroid hormone syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. Another manuscript from Simsek’s honors thesis research is in progress.
As a result of his research, he was invited to give a talk at the annual Beckman Symposium this year and won an Honorable Mention for his poster at the 2024 American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology meeting.
Simsek participates in many science-related activities on campus, competes as a ballroom dancer and plays classical guitar. He is also a teaching assistant and enjoys acting as a mentor to other students.
“Yigit is ambitious, but not overconfident,” said Allison, “and his unpretentious nature and deep passion for science are inspirational to undergraduates and graduate students alike. An excellent teacher, he takes many new lab members under his wing, guiding them through protocols, and teaching them how to think like scientists.”
As a first-generation college student who recently immigrated from Turkey, Simsek has experienced the challenges of navigating the unfamiliar landscape of U.S. higher education. This has fed his commitment to serve as a mentor for students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in STEM.
He is quick to point out that mentoring others benefits his own understanding, as well.
“When someone asks me a question, I am invited to approach concepts from different perspectives, and through this I challenge my own understanding,” he said. “Science is inherently a collaborative pursuit, and there is so much value in including and considering diverse perspectives.”
Thus, Simsek expresses his appreciation for those who have worked with and inspired him throughout his time at W&M.
“My experience at W&M has been an incredibly gratifying journey, one that I could not have navigated alone,” he said. “I’d like to extend my sincerest thanks to my mentors, the past and present members of the Allison lab, the esteemed W&M faculty whom I’ve had the pleasure of being instructed by, the W&M Ballroom Dance club for providing a pleasant distraction and to my family and friends for their encouragement.”
James Monroe Prize in Civic Leadership: Alison Mayer ’25
A teacher’s influence on a student knows no bounds.
Just ask Alison Mayer ’25, winner of the James Monroe Prize in Civic Leadership in acknowledgement of her leadership and genuine passion for serving others.
“I’ve had many wonderful teachers growing up and felt both intellectually and personally compelled to pursue a career in education, and coming to William & Mary only piqued that interest,” Mayer said.
The Monroe Prize is presented annually to a student who “demonstrates sustained leadership of an unusual quality, leadership combined with initiative, character and an unfailing commitment to leveraging the assets of the William & Mary community to address the needs of our society.”
“I feel incredibly honored and grateful to have been selected for the 2025 James Monroe Prize in Civic Leadership,” she said. “On a campus filled with so many inspiring, dedicated and passionate individuals, it is deeply meaningful and humbling to have even been considered for such an honor.”
Mayer, an elementary education major with a concentration in special education, has immersed herself in opportunities to serve both the William & Mary community and other organizations that align with her passion for teaching students with special needs.
“I have consistently sought opportunities within the Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools (WJCC) district to apply what I have learned in my coursework to real-world and practical experiences,” she said. “I have worked as a substitute teacher and an All-In Virginia tutor in addition to completing my practicum, fieldwork and student-teaching placements.”
Mayer’s dedication to her students and her efforts to make the classroom a welcoming, inclusive environment stood out to those with whom she worked.
“She has consistently demonstrated a commitment to improving the lives of those around her, through both her academic work and her community service,” wrote Cheri Grantz, gifted and talented development resource teacher for Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools, in an email.
The William & Mary community has also greatly benefited from Mayer’s dedication, leadership and advocacy for those with disabilities. She became involved in the university’s Griffin School Partnership Literacy Lab, a program that provides specialized reading support to local students.
Debbie Ramer, clinical faculty in special education/director of the special education program at the W&M School of Education and co-director of the Literacy Lab, says Mayer is highly deserving of the award.
“Alison emulates the qualities and characteristics iterated by the James Monroe Prize in Civic Leadership through her sustained leadership in multiple service organizations, deep commitment to the inclusion and success of individuals with a variety of disabilities, willingness to examine and address challenges and ability to encourage and inspire others to similarly commit to service,” Ramer wrote.
Last summer, Mayer had the opportunity to participate in community-centered research to further her mission. She partnered with One Child Center for Autism, a local nonprofit supporting children and their families affected by autism and other developmental differences.
“I partnered with One Child to offer two social skills groups, allowing children with autism to socialize with their peers and learn valuable conversational skills,” she said. “I feel especially proud that this study yielded statistically significant results.”
Mayer is looking forward to graduation and reflecting on her wonderful journey at W&M. She embraces the relationships she has built and relishes the experience gained to further her personal and professional goals.
“All of the children that I have gotten to know and work with continually reinforce my passion for the field,” she said. “All the hugs, high fives and small moments of growth I have witnessed in my students have been more meaningful to me than words can express.”
As she prepares to graduate, Mayer recalls the sense of belonging in the community she has been a part of the last four years — something she says is important to her success.
“The campus and the Williamsburg community have truly become my home, and I believe that the sense of belonging I have felt is something uniquely special,” she said. “To me, the Monroe Prize is not just a recognition of past efforts, but also a challenge to keep growing, learning, and leading in a way that benefits others.
“It is deeply rewarding to know that my personal passions and pursuits have had an impact on others, and it simultaneously motivates me to continue striving for meaningful progress.”
