Dyani Johns Taff admits that her decision to attend UC Davis as a graduate student was somewhat arbitrary to begin with; she moved to Davis when her partner joined the UC Davis Animal Behavior Graduate Group. But the seventh-year graduate student in the English Department is grateful to have landed where she did: with a department that strikes an extraordinary balance between being prestigious — with nationally prominent, award-winning faculty — and supportive and collegial.

“I think that I’ve been happier and much better supported at UC Davis than I would have been at any other school,” Johns Taff says. “From my first quarter, I've benefited enormously from the mentorship and expertise of the faculty in early modern literature. I’ve made a number of important friendships in my department that would not have been possible — or would at least have been much more difficult or strained — had I gone to another school with less funding and more competition among graduate students.”

Under this fellowship, she has been developing a course called "Romance, Religion, and Piracy" that focuses on teaching through original research in the Shields Library Special Collections. “I plan to use my research to teach students, but also to mentor and guide the students in conducting their own original research,” she explains. “This project — a culmination of my work as a scholar and my teaching experiences at UC Davis — would not have been possible without the support of the initiative and the training I've received during my graduate study.”

Johns Taff is grounded in a deeply and mutually beneficial relationship with faculty, her office mates, and other graduate students in the program. As a collaborative team, the colleagues create assignments together, help each other problem-solve, and discuss and explore diverse classroom teaching methods — and have fun doing it. “These small-scale, daily collaborations have been invaluable to my training as a teacher,” Johns Taff says. “I can't count the number of times that my peers' input has allowed me to salvage a tanking discussion section, fix an assignment that wasn't yielding the kinds of papers that I wanted, and overcome many other teaching challenges. I'm a much better teacher because of these collaborations.”

Between teaching, her dissertation, and being a new mother, a work/life balance has been challenging.  But her dedication is paying off. Johns Taff was recently awarded an Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award, recognized with just a handful of others for their contributions to teaching,and to their students’ lives. Considering the fact that UC Davis has about 2,500 graduate teaching assistants, it is a high honor. “I have had the great privilege of teaching and learning at UC Davis — from both my professors and my students — for the past six years, and I am honored and humbled to have been recognized for my work as a teacher,” she says. “This award inspires me to continue learning from my excellent students and to continue developing and improving my teaching."