Kristen Brustad

University of Texas at Austin

2022 Recipient

Kristen Brustad 

 

This year’s mentoring award is given to Kristen Brustad in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the training and development of others in Middle East studies.

It is difficult to sum up the 35 exceptional letters of support from students and mentees who come from and work all over the globe, representing mentoring from all stages of her career, because training others was a core part of her career from beginning to end. Her exceptional contributions to the education and mentoring of others can be grouped into four general categories:

1. Arabic language training: Dr. Brustad taught basic and advanced Arabic language skills to undergraduates and graduate students, ranging from new learners to native speakers. Her instruction empowered students with the skills and confidence to continue learning and using Arabic throughout their own careers, both in and out of academia. 

2. Teacher training: While Dr. Brustad continually modeled effective pedagogy in all her courses, she also provided direct training in Arabic language instruction to the next generation of Arabic teachers and professors. Many former students have gone on to found and lead Arabic programs of their own throughout the United States and the Arab world. 

3. Arabic language pedagogy: Along with her two co-authors, Dr. Brustad revolutionized the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language. The Al-Kitaab series of books and DVDs introduced a communicative, proficiency-based model that has enabled generations of students to speak (read and write) Arabic – including colloquial dialects – as a living language. Not only have these materials become the new standard for Arabic language learning, but also the model developed by Dr. Brustad and her co-authors has inspired new models in the teaching of other languages.

4. Honors and Graduate Mentoring, Supervision, and Professional Development: The single strongest theme throughout the letters is Dr. Brustad’s ability to inspire and empower her mentees to realize their full potential. She made students believe that their ideas were worth pursuing and helped them to acquire the tools and direction to turn those ideas into theses and dissertations. Many former students marvel at the amount of time Dr. Brustad spent reading drafts, asking pointed questions, and writing letters of recommendation or language evaluations. Time spent, though, is not in itself sufficient to produce the transformative impact that Dr. Brustad has had on her mentees; her interventions were effective because they were brilliant, caring, insightful, rigorous, and above all tailored to the needs of each student. Former mentees also note the formative impact of Dr. Brustad’s own scholarship, including her ground-breaking monograph the Syntax of Spoken Arabic, which laid the foundation for new research focused on Arabic dialects. The impressive depth and breadth of knowledge she brought to her graduate seminars further inspired her own students and helped model the type of teacher-scholars many of them aspired to become. Finally, former students note that Dr. Brustad fostered connections between students that turned them into a mutually supportive community, something that proved invaluable as they navigated graduate school and began to apply for jobs. 

Dr. Brustad’s former students also give her ample credit for their professional successes, noting that she coached them through their first conference presentations, tirelessly critiqued application letters and job talks, staged mock interviews, wrote letter after letter on their behalf, and ultimately helped them weigh their options when the job offers arrived. Many of the students are incredulous (in the most positive way) at the time, effort, and care Dr. Brustad put into every step of this process, for every student. 

It is an honor to recognize Kristen Brustad — an outstanding scholar, teacher, and mentor — who has constantly encouraged the finest of Middle East studies scholarship by training multiple generations of academics at every stage of her career.

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