Lorianne Willett
Students laugh as Associate Professor of Practice Deb Lewis poses for a portrait in an RTF studio on February 3, 2025. Lewis, a career cinematographer, recently won the Moody College Teaching Excellence Award.
Students never know what adventure they’ll be receiving from Deb Lewis, radio-television-film associate professor of practice. Whether it’s a link to a song, syndrome or a warning to bring a rain jacket to class, Lewis keeps her students on their toes.
At the end of January, the Moody College of Communication announced Deb Lewis as the winner of the 2024 Moody College Teaching Excellence Award. Since 1980, this annual award has allowed students to nominate the faculty member who displays outstanding teaching practices. After being named a finalist in the fall, the college asked Lewis to put together a package of student letters of support, a resume and a teaching philosophy.
“Seeing the letters from the students was the best part of this because … they mentioned situations that happened 10 years ago, and they have these very specific memories of things I said to them,” Lewis said. “It’s a beautiful confluence of very positive energy, and I was humbled by it and truly honored to get the award. What could be better than, as an instructor, to have your students feel that the work that you do paid off for them?”
In the five-hour upper-division Cinema Laboratory class offered in both fall and spring semesters, Lewis sends an email the day before class giving just a peek at what to expect. The following day, students go on an adventure outlined in the email to shoot and edit a story. The film is expected to be shot, edited and turned in by 4:45 p.m. Every week presented a different scenario and story.
“It was a class that I always looked forward to,” said Iván Ovalle, a radio-television-film 2015 alumnus, who is now a post-production supervisor at London Alley Entertainment. “This was one of the first classes that was really putting things (into) action. … A lot of the internal skills that I learned throughout are things I still (use) to this day.”
Lewis started her career working on documentary and narrative film. However, with a demanding workload that took her away from her daughter for six days at a time, Lewis felt she needed to balance her schedule and decided to teach more. Lewis said she realized her skill at demystifying technical skills for students. She was offered a contract to teach as an adjunct professor and has been at UT since.
“I really don’t think I’ve ever had such an encouraging professor before,” said Tova Katzman, a second-year studio art graduate student. “It was a really supportive environment … where I think we were able to explore to the fullest with no pressure to explain ourselves. It felt experimental in the way that I think we need more of in academia.”
Lewis said she believes in her approach to filmmaking and is currently working on a book proposal for her Cinema Laboratory class and hopes to take it to the world.
“Feeling like my students enjoy filmmaking more or have a better grasp of it is the best reward of all,” Lewis said.