As Northwestern students walk across the stage at the University’s 168th Commencement ceremony on Sunday, many will reflect on the professors who shaped their academic journeys. But some graduates are also honoring the high school teachers who helped them reach this milestone.

Each year, the Morton Schapiro Distinguished Secondary School Teacher Awards, named after former NU president Morton Schapiro, recognize high school teachers nominated by graduating NU seniors. The Daily spoke with this year’s recipients about their teaching philosophies, passions and memories of the students who nominated them.

James Kennedy

Though he originally earned a degree in physical education, James Kennedy, who teaches Adapted Physical Education at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Illinois, said his job allows him to combine multiple passions.

“I loved being active. I loved being outside. I loved exercising, playing different sports, but I also had a passion for working with students in special education and trying to give them a better learning environment,” Kennedy said. “So, being able to put the two of those together, I thought that was the best position for me.”

Kennedy teaches an elective called Peer Partners that brings together students with disabilities, whom the program calls “Athletes,” and junior and senior “Peer Partners” who support them through a range of physical education activities.

Two NU students who participated in the program, McCormick senior Bhavi Barnwal and Weinberg senior Preena Shroff, served as Peer Partners under Kennedy. He said he was always impressed by their temperaments in the classroom.

“Not one day would you recognize or realize that they were having a bad day,” Kennedy said. “They always came in every day with a positive attitude, a smile on their face, ready to help those around them.”

In his classroom, Kennedy said he emphasizes inclusion and encourages students to embrace differences while supporting classmates with disabilities, alongside the typical goals of physical education.

He hopes students leave his class with a commitment to improving the lives of others. Kennedy said he especially enjoys hearing from former students about their college experiences, particularly volunteer work and other service activities that “make everyone feel part of the team.”

“They might not remember every single lesson we did or every single activity we did, but they remember the way people felt, the way people were included, the way everyone felt like they were part of the group,” Kennedy said.

Alessandra King

A self-described “old-fashioned feminist,” Alessandra King, who teaches math at the all-girls Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, said she has always been a teacher.

As a teenager, she taught a friend Latin, and she was inspired by her mother and grandmother, who were also educators. Those influences, along with her experience raising four daughters, reinforced her belief that it is important for “girls to have a place at the table.”

King was nominated for the award by McCormick senior Maya Solomon. The nomination was especially meaningful, King said, because she remembered Solomon as a quiet student.

“I was almost moved to tears, and then I checked the name, and I was even more surprised because it’s one of those students that I didn’t even realize I had impacted,” King said.

King said she structures her classroom around group work, emphasizing collaboration over lecture. Operating under the belief that “mathematicians work together,” she said students learn more by solving problems collectively than by watching her work through them on the board for an entire class period.

While her calculus classes include tests and quizzes, students also complete projects, study the history of mathematics and hear from women working in STEM fields. Above all, King said it is essential to support natural curiosity.

“If a student learns to love math, if she doesn’t already, then they will go on learning math for all their lives,” King said. “I don’t have to worry that I can’t teach all the possible calculus because they will continue studying it.”

King said math education should prioritize learning over performance. As she often tells students, “what is important is truly not the right answer.” Instead, she places value on the strategy, reasoning and creativity students demonstrate, even when a small mistake leads to an incorrect answer.

One of her favorite parts of teaching, she said, is watching students discover solutions to difficult problems and experience “feeling smart.”

“I can see it in their faces because they don’t jump up and down, but they have that little smile,” King said. “There is nothing like that.”

Brian Sweeney

For Brian Sweeney, teaching journalism is now more important than ever. Sweeney is an English teacher at Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, New York, and adviser to the school newspaper, The Classic.

Sweeney was newer to journalism when he started his role. He said he believes it is incredibly important for students to gain the skills journalism has to offer, from media literacy to writing about difficult issues.

“I like to see students be able to create something that doesn’t die in a Google Classroom assignment or a folder in my bag,” Sweeney said. “It’s something that is meant to be read and shared, and an audience is going to interact with it and sometimes criticize it.”

Medill senior and former Daily staffer Micah Sandy wrote for The Classic with Sweeney as an adviser, including reporting on a controversy over music played in the school hallways. The leaders of Townsend Harris’ Black Excellence Club had curated a playlist featuring several Black artists to honor Black History Month, which generated backlash over certain song lyrics.

“I was like, ‘Micah, this one’s you, you should take this on,’ and he just did a spectacular job,” Sweeney said.

When introducing students to journalism, Sweeney said his approach is to “throw them in the deep end.” Instead of having students listen to him talk about the core principles of journalism or the perfect interview techniques for months on end, he likes for them “to get right into it.”

From sharing energy for journalism to supporting the creation of new branches of the paper, he said he welcomes students and their ideas.

“I don’t want to just teach the same thing every year and the same lessons,” Sweeney said. “I drive the lessons based on what the students want rather than the other way around, and I think that’s what makes what we do unique.”

Jim Walker

Jim Walker grew up around so many pets that he called his home “a zoo.” As a science teacher at Carroll High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Walker said he has found a way to hone his hobbies into a profession.

“If you can get paid for doing your hobby, then you’ll never look at your job as a job,” Walker said.

Walker said he likes to pitch thought-provoking questions to his class, often partnering students up to deliberate on ideas related to environmental issues.

Viewing the classroom as a place to build connections, Walker said he likes to have students interact with each other frequently, and he sees himself as a “facilitator of the community” rather than a “deliverer of trivia and content.” 

Walker said he was honored that McCormick senior Alexander Barb, who once took his AP Environmental Science class, thought of him so many years later. He said Barb would regularly engage in back-and-forth exchanges with Walker after class.

“With Alex, it’s almost like he wasn’t totally satisfied by that interaction (during class), and he was always deep in thought and contemplation,” Walker said. “He would frequently hang out after class, and he wanted to pick my brain.”

When Walker learned of his nomination, he said he felt like he was “paid in a different way” because he realized how much of an impact he had made on his former student.

He added he enjoys receiving messages from former students in general.

“I love getting emails from former students, telling me, ‘Hey, I went to this university,’ or ‘Hey, I got this job,’ or ‘Hey, Mr. Walker, this is a picture of me and my tree that you gave me like 10 years ago. I can’t believe how big it is,’” Walker said. “It really reinforces my choice to be a teacher.”

Email: [email protected]

Related Stories:

— Schapiro Award winners reflect on the importance of high school education

— The Daily Northwestern’s 2026 Graduation Issue

— Northwestern announces Sarah Jessica Parker as 2026 commencement speaker