Passion Lord, a fourth year PhD candidate at the UCLA school of Education and Information Studies has been selected to receive the 2026 UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award for Teaching Assistants.
The Distinguished Teaching Award is given to UCLA teaching assistants who demonstrate a pattern of effective teaching that incorporates current pedagogical best practices, aims to inspire and challenge students, and supports the success of all students. Lord is one of only six awardees selected this year from an extraordinary pool of nominees. In announcing Lord’s selection, the UCLA Teaching and Learning Center committee noted it was impressed by her innovative teaching methods and ability to inspire and motivate learners.
Lord will receive $6,000 and a certificate in in honor of her outstanding contributions to teaching. Lord and the other recipients will also be recognized at the annual Andrea L. Rich Night to Honor Teaching next fall at UCLA.
“I am very excited about the award, it means a lot. But I am also I’m very humbled by it,” says Lord. It’s reaffirming that I’m doing something right, and that in learning how to teach, I have been able not just to learn but to apply the teaching as well.
Now in her third year as a teaching fellow, Lord teaches the course “Research in Black Life Institutions and Culture, in affiliation with the UCLA Bunche Center. She also teaches comparative Black Studies Research Methods — helping students prepare to present for the UCLA Undergraduate Research Showcase and the Bunch Fellows Research Symposium.
“I love working with students, being able to mentor and support them, and just help them figure out the hidden curriculum. I learn by listening to the students and meeting them where they are. For a lot of them, this is the first time they’re conducting research. I like the application aspect of it, to be able to help them see it in action and its impact. It’s very collaborative,” says Lord
“I really enjoy what I do, so it doesn’t feel like work, it gets me excited.”
Lord’s own research is focused on how social media can be used as a form of recruitment, retention, and persistence in higher education for underrepresented students. Her dissertation looks at how social media, specifically YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, influences Black students to enroll and accept at an institution of higher education.
The awards were announced Thursday, May 28, by the UCLA Teaching and Learning Center. More details about the 2026 Distinguished Teaching Awards can be found in a recent BruinPost from Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning Erin Sanders O’Leary.
The UCLA Distinguished Teaching Awards celebrate teaching excellence and educational innovation, helping to elevate the practice of teaching as outlined in the UCLA for Life flagship initiative, a part of Chancellor Julio Frenk’s One UCLA campaign, and the University’s Strategic Plan.