“I loved that they challenged me and expected things from me,” Ferzan says of the teachers who influenced her scholarly writings and teaching methodologies. “At the end of the day, I am a law professor because I was incredibly lucky to have ended up with the right set of professors.”
Now, it’s her own students who consider themselves lucky. Ferzan, a professor and associate dean for academic affairs at the Rutgers School of Law–Camden, was selected as the Professor of the Year by the Class of 2010.
One student wrote that “Dean Ferzan is one of the true gems of this faculty.”
Another Rutgers–Camden law student says Ferzan “is very passionate and it is contagious. She genuinely cares about her students and their intellectual enrichment.”
Ferzan is also the recipient of the annual Rutgers–Camden Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, an honor bestowed upon her by a faculty selection committee.
“The committee recognized the positive impact that you have had upon your students, and the high regard that they, in turn, have bestowed upon you,” Rutgers–Camden Chancellor Wendell Pritchett said in a letter to Ferzan.
A letter written by a Rutgers–Camden faculty member on Ferzan’s behalf noted, “What distinguishes Kim from other excellent teachers is her flexibility and creativity. When something doesn’t work, she fixes it. When something is working well, but could be better, she adjusts her teaching.”
Ferzan says her first goal in teaching law is to inspire a love for the subject.
“My method of reaching the students is simply to love what I am doing and love what I am teaching,” says Ferzan, who teaches Criminal Law and Evidence at Rutgers–Camden. “I try to emulate the professors who taught the classes where I learned best.”
Ferzan says she also tries to get her students to think like lawyers while engaging them, and inspiring them to think critically.
“I think that even difficult concepts can be mastered and I will not give up on everyone’s ability to get there,” she says.
Ferzan’s passion for teaching may have been nourished by her own law professors, but it also stems from her work as a teenage camp counselor in Miami, where she says she taught everything from photography to chemistry. She also taught elementary school science.
“I liked working with kids and getting them to understand complicated concepts,” Ferzan says. “It required really thinking through how to get a difficult concept across, how to make it accessible and how to engage them. I enjoy that and it’s carried me through.”
Ferzan received her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina. She is co-founder and co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy.
Ferzan is the co-author of Crime and Culpability: A Theory of Criminal Law (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and co-editor of Criminal Law Conversations (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Media Contact: Ed Moorhouse
856-225-6759
E-mail: ejmoor@camden.rutgers.edu