Univeristy of Pennsylvania
Close

You Have Arrived: Community and Achievement for the CETLI Graduate Fellows for Teaching Excellence

Double rainbow over Penn Park, University of Pennsylvania with Philadelphia skyline.

20May’26

Feature Stories, Spotlights

May 20, 2026 by Erin Bartnett

Some of the people who have a big impact on graduate student teachers at Penn happen to be graduate student teachers themselves. The CETLI Graduate Fellowship for Teaching Excellence honors exemplary graduate student teachers and is designed to build community for graduate student teaching at Penn. As part of the year-long cohort, fellows foster teaching community and develop graduate student pedagogy programming. In the 2025-2026 year alone, the fellows organized over 100 graduate teaching workshops across the University.  

Next year, CETLI plans to spotlight what can be learned through those teaching workshops. But first, we wanted to hear about what can be learned from organizing them. What do the fellows learn, achieve, and experience throughout the year? At one of the final fellow meetings for the 25-26 cohort, I asked them all those questions masquerading as one: As a CETLI Fellow, have you experienced a moment where you felt like you "arrived”—at Penn, as a graduate student, in your academic field? 

Did arrival, I asked, have something to do with achievement?  

The cohort had already done some reflection on their achievements in the CETLI Graduate Fellow experience. In a previous meeting, they had individually written about their achievements and targets. Then, as a group, they had determined those achievements and targets fit into three categories of impact: Personal Development, Teaching Strategies, and Community Building. The achievements had range: “Sending scary emails to professors.” and "Built an interdisciplinary teaching community with my co-fellows.”  

Helping Fellow Graduate Students Teach Effectively

Lance Murphy of Immunology said the fellowship enabled him to develop workshops and teaching resources that had a meaningful impact on student learning. He recalled running a workshop on how to make lab feel like a learning experience, "Teaching Research" with Dr. Jennifer Punt of Pathobiology. When he received glowing feedback from a new undergraduate mentee in his own lab, that felt like an achievement. He thought to himself, maybe I am good at teaching, maybe the workshops I am running are truly helpful. 

I asked the group if that feeling of arrival also includes something about community—the discovery that you belong; to arrive means you feel part of something larger.  

Sandrine Rajaonarivony of FIGS says she felt like she had arrived in her academic field when she co-organized the roundtable, Gender in the Classroom: Thinking Outside of Women's History Month with Dr. Julia Alekseyva of English, Rebecca Harmon of FIGS, and Julia Heim of FIGS. The roundtable, which she co-organized with Anna Linetskaya of Comparative Literature & Literary Theory, created a space for people to engage in a welcoming, honest conversation about critical matters in their areas of study.  

While the process of organizing the event itself was a clear achievement, Rajaonarviony said she also felt her skillsets made her feel seen, and like she truly belonged in her field and profession. Linetskaya agrees. She also said organizing workshops for her colleagues helped her realize that she can use her professional skillsets to work within her teaching community, too. When thirty people show up to a workshop she’s organized, it reminds her that there is a need for these teaching resources that help graduate students teach more effectively.  

"Being a CETLI fellow gave me unprecedented opportunities to know and collaborate with faculty, colleagues, and alums in my department and beyond."
Mengliu Cheng, Graduate Student in the School of Arts & Sciences, Department of History
Mengliu Cheng
School of Arts & Sciences

Building Teaching Community at Penn and Beyond

Others shared that the fellowship empowered them to arrive as members of the teaching community at Penn.  

A.J. Geers of Electrical & Systems Engineering said the meaningful engagement from the PhD coordinator and faculty in his department was instrumental. As he organized programming, he could proceed with the confidence that he had full, bought-in support from his department.  

For Rehana Thembeka Odendaal of Education, Culture & Society, and Sociology, organizing CETLI workshops helped her build bridges between graduate students and faculty in her department. She's been able to connect students to faculty they might not take classes with, and act as a co-facilitator in workshops with professors. The fellowship helped her realize that her own experiences contribute to building that inter-peer space for teaching at Penn. At every workshop, she said, it was exciting to see who showed up. 

As the cohort shared their experiences of arrival, it became clear that they were all building a broader fellowship for graduate student teaching at Penn.  

Indeed, after the meeting, another fellow, Mengliu Cheng of History, told me: “Being a CETLI Fellow gave me unprecedented opportunities to know and collaborate with faculty, colleagues, and alums in my department and beyond.” She said organizing her workshops and observing other TAs’ teaching has prepared her for becoming junior faculty. 

Cheng's second point reminded me that arrival has another meaning: it can also signal the beginning of something new. The 25-26 cohort is about to embark on the next chapter of their teaching careers. They have already made a difference here at Penn, through dialogues with their peers, in partnership with their professors, as they support student learning in classrooms and labs. But the impact of their work for the teaching community at Penn and beyond will be experienced by students and instructors for years to come. 

News & Features

More Resources

Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Innovation