Jesus Torrecilla

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USC and LSU may have shared the national championship in football, but UCLA got the best they had to offer - Jesus Torrecilla.

Recognized by USC's Office for International Students and Scholars for outstanding academic achievement and recipient of a distinguished teaching award from LSU, for seven years Jesus Torrecilla has been a UCLA distinguished teacher in every sense of the word: innovative, dedicated to his students, and generous in accepting the most difficult teaching assignments.

Torrecilla's course load places heavy intellectual demands on him, for the subject matter spans three centuries. His wide range of courses include Civilization of Spain and Portugal, Hispanic Literature, Enlightenment and Romanticism in Spain, Studies in Hispanic Cultures and Civilization, and Spanish Literary Theory and Criticism. Colleagues recognize Torrecilla's dual role as academician and successful novelist, characterizing him as a serious scholar who understands the creative process from the inside.

Being a good professor does not only imply giving the students the best information available about a certain topic, but also setting an example of conduct. Torrecilla's students and colleagues recognize him as not only a source of information, but as a role model who affects their lives in decisive (and often unpredictable) ways.