Five members of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law faculty—including two who are in their first full year at Indiana Law—were honored today (March 22) with Teaching Awards, recognizing exceptional teaching over the course of the academic year.
Professor Luis Fuentes-Rohwer was honored with the Leon H. Wallace Teaching Award, the highest teaching recognition a faculty member can be awarded, while Professors Christian Freitag, Andrew Hammond, and Jenn Oliva were each awarded Trustees’ Teaching Awards.
Don Knebel, a retired partner at Barnes & Thornburg LLP, received the Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award.
“Our faculty are world renowned leaders in their fields, as researchers and scholars,” said Dean Christiana Ochoa. “They are shaping the conversations that are most vital to the country and to the world, and for that we could not be more proud. But these faculty who dedicate so much their time to their research and to their writing, and to being out shaping the world, are among all the other things fabulous teachers. And that is something that is so important for us to come together once a year to commemorate and to note and to cherish.”
About this year’s Teaching Award recipients:
Luis Fuentes-Rohwer is the Harry T. Ice Faculty Fellow at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of civil rights and legal history, with a particular emphasis on constitutional law and the Reconstruction Era. His scholarship focuses on the intersection of race and democratic theory, as reflected in the law of democracy in general and the Voting Rights Act in particular. He is interested in the way that institutions—and especially courts—are asked to craft and implement the ground rules of American politics.
What our students said: “His passion while teaching demonstrates his skill as an excellent educator. He is patient and open to explaining more in-depth cases and hypotheticals. His teaching style is entertaining and exciting and he makes class interesting. He goes above and beyond to serve as an advisor to us students, and to a number of student organizations such as the American Constitution Society, the Latinx Law Student Association, and the Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality. He is an invaluable part of the Maurer community, one that truly cares about his students.”
Christian Freitag is a clinical associate professor of law and president and executive director of the Conservation Law Center. He joined the Conservation Law Center in 2019 as its second executive director, replacing founder and longtime director W. William Weeks III. For the previous 18 years, he served as executive director of Sycamore Land Trust, a nonprofit land conservation organization in Southern Indiana. Freitag graduated from the Maurer School of Law in 1997 and clerked from 1997–1999 for former Indiana Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard. He received his PhD from IU’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in 2010, where his research focused on the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act on public agencies including the US Forest Service.
What our students said: “When I arrived at law school I didn’t think any of my professors would be talking about Jedi, but during the initial interest meeting for the Conservation Law Clinic, Jedi were one of the first things Professor Freitag mentioned—he wanted to train us to be Jedi in the world of conservation law. He genuinely celebrates your successes and encourages you to continue pushing, beyond idealism and in demonstrating that well-crafted arguments and carefully choosing one’s battles make all the difference. That attitude translates directly into the outlook he takes on conservation and environmental justice, and it is passed on directly to the students, whether or not they intend to pursue a career in environmental law.”
Andrew Hammond joined the Maurer faculty in 2023. Before that, he was an Assistant Professor of Law and then an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Hammond also taught in the College and the Law School at the University of Chicago. Before entering academia, Hammond practiced as a legal aid attorney at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law in Chicago, first as a Skadden Fellow and then Of Counsel. He writes and teaches in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, and poverty law. His scholarship focuses on how agencies, courts, and legislatures respond to poor people’s claims.
What our students said: “You would never know about his already impressive career by the way he carries himself or speaks to his students. His combination of friendliness and humility make learning from him that much easier. He consistently engages his classes with thought-provoking questions and his passion has been visible to anyone who has taken his courses. The quality of his teaching is evident by the fact that he was one of the most-nominated professors for these awards.”
Jenn Oliva is a United States Army veteran who serves as a Research Scholar at Georgetown Law’s O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law, a Senior Scholar with the UCSF/UC Law Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy, and on the National Pain Advocacy Center’s Science & Policy Advisory Council. Her research and teaching interests include health law and policy, privacy law, evidence, torts, and complex litigation.
What our students said: “Professor Oliva is always happy to talk to her students about their academic and professional development, all while excelling in her teaching. Her teaching style is both entertaining and engaging—it works. She pushes students to refine their critical thinking skills while giving constructive feedback and doing so in a way that is respectful and helpful. She goes above and beyond to keep her students engaged as she lectures in class.”
Since 2011, Don Knebel has been an adjunct professor and senior Advisor to the Center for Intellectual Property Research. He teaches courses on antitrust and intellectual property law. One course seeks to teach law students the principles and techniques of intellectual property litigation by engaging them in the preparation and trial of a hypothetical patent case, tried before a jury and an actual federal judge. This course, thought to be the first of its kind in the United States, now includes law students from the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, where Don is an adjunct professor.
What our students said: “Professor Knebel has an ability to create an approachable environment in class, and an ability to constantly engage students in interesting discussions. He is a master at distilling down complex topics, and many students felt confident their classes with him have prepared them well for practice.”