Lecturer, Department of International Affairs
Dr. Leah Carmichael has served as a Lecturer in the Department of International Affairs from 2016 to the present. Before this time, she served as a Limited-Term Lecturer in the Department (from 2014 to 2015) and as a Teaching Assistant while in graduate school in the department from (2011 to 2014). As the International Affairs Department hosts one of the most popular and fastest-growing undergraduate majors at the University of Georgia, there is considerable demand for undergraduate course offerings that prepare the hundreds of majors and minors for careers in International Affairs. As a Lecturer, Leah is responsible for teaching four courses each fall and semester and two in the summer, culminating in more than 60 courses taught to thousands of undergraduate students within her tenure.
In addition to in-classroom instruction, Leah also serves as the Internship Director and the Undergraduate Coordinator for the Department of International Affairs, and as a member of the Department’s Curriculum Committee and Faculty Executive Committee. Within the larger School of Public and International Affairs, Leah serves as the Faculty Sponsor for the University of Georgia’s Model United Nations team and the SPIA representative on the University Curriculum Committee. Within the larger University community, Leah has served on various award panels for Honors (e.g., Boren, Fulbrights, and Rhodes), the Task Force for Teaching and Learning (2021), and as a member of the Teaching Academy’s Executive Committee.
Leah’s commitment to excellence in undergraduate teaching and mentorship has been recognized and supported at the Department, SPIA-level, and the University. Beginning in 2016, Leah was awarded the Department of International Affairs Award for Teaching Excellence and invited to be a member of the University Teaching Academy Fellows program. In 2019, Leah was awarded the Disability Resource Center’s Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award for her commitment to providing classroom settings that ensure universal access to all students. In the Spring of 2021, Leah won the Honors College’s J. Hatten Howard III Award for faculty members who exhibit special promise in teaching Honors courses early in their career. In that same year, Leah became a full member of the Teaching Academy and was awarded the University’s Creative Teaching Award for pivoting to an online course for a course originally designed to be taught as part of Globis’s Italy study abroad program.
In addition to these awards, Leah has received grants and fellowships for her research in and commitment to pedagogical excellence. In 2018, Leah participated in both the Online Learning Fellows and Student Affairs Fellows programs. That same year, Leah also participated in the inaugural cohort of the Active Learning Institute through the Center for Teaching and Learning. This opportunity refined her purpose and methods for teaching active-learning style courses and has been instrumental in her subsequent success as an instructor. In 2020, Leah was awarded the Affordable Course Materials Grant to design open-access and affordable course material from the University Library system. Since this grant, Leah has remained committed to providing free course materials for all of her courses. In 2021, Leah was selected as a recipient of SPIA’s Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Grant to redesign her courses with a focus on decolonizing the curriculum as well as researching methods for identifying and actively dismantling existing discriminatory pedagogical practices. In 2021, Leah also published an undergraduate course in International Law was published by Lexington Books as an active-learning style textbook. The book, titled, Is International Law Even Law?, is to be used in pre-law and International Studies courses. Leah’s current research projects focus on the growing geostrategic competition in the Arctic region and the use of starvation as a tool of war. Both projects are projected to be published as books in 2023.
