Lawrence teaching awards presented to Khor, Schlabach, Colón at 2025 Commencement

Three Lawrence University professors were honored at Commencement with the college’s 2025 teaching awards. 

Lena Khor, associate professor of English, received the Excellence in Teaching Award; Betsy Schlabach, associate professor of history, received the Excellence in Scholarship or Creative Activity Award; and Sigma Colón, assistant professor of environmental studies and ethnic studies, received the Excellence in Teaching by an Early-Career Faculty Member Award.

See coverage of 2025 Commencement

Lena Khor

Khor has been teaching literature at Lawrence since 2009. Her academic specialty is 20th and 21st century postcolonial and global anglophone literature and her research areas have focused on human rights, humanitarianism, and environmentalism.

"A scholar of global and multicultural literature, your teaching focuses on learning about the world with and alongside literary texts; you establish your classroom as a place where trust is developed to learn together about difficult topics," Provost and Dean of Faculty Peter Blitstein said of Khor as he presented her with a citation.  

Khor's book, Human Rights Discourse in a Global Network, was published by Routledge in 2013. Her work also has been published in Human Rights Quarterly, South Central Review, and Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice.

She has led interdisciplinary projects such as guiding Lawrence students in creating and showing documentaries on the intersections of literature and human rights. A member of the English faculty, she also teaches as part of the interdisciplinary ethnic studies program and global studies program.

A native of Penang, Malaysia, Khor received a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College.

Betsy Schlabach

A member of the history faculty since 2021, Schlabach teaches courses in 20th century American history, African American history, and urban history. 

She is the author of two books, Along the Streets of Bronzeville: Black Chicago’s Literary Landscapes, published in 2013, and Dream Books and Gamblers: Black Women’s Work in Chicago’s Policy Game, published in 2022. 

Her 2022 book arrived about the same time Schlabach received a travel grant that allowed her to take her research efforts on the road, traveling to the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University, an archive housing more than 1,000 oral history recordings about life in the Jim Crow South.

Schlabach has been a champion of humanities research efforts among faculty at Lawrence. 

"Colleagues laud you as exemplifying the teacher-scholar and praise your engagement with the public outside the walls of academe," Blitstein said.

She has a Ph.D. in American studies from Saint Louis University, a master’s from Lehigh University, and a bachelor’s degree from Valparaiso University.

Sigma Colón

In 2024, Colón was named one of 20 Career Enhancement Fellows by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. Funded by the Mellon Foundation and administered by Citizens & Scholars, the fellowship increases the presence of outstanding junior faculty committed to campus diversity and innovative research in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

Colón came to Lawrence in 2017 via postdoctoral National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowships in geography and history, then worked as a visiting assistant professor of environmental and ethnic studies before earning a tenure-track appointment in 2021. She teaches in both ethnic studies and environmental studies, developing courses that address the geopolitics of inequality and linking racial and environmental justice.

The Career Enhancement Fellowship has allowed her to focus attention on research centered on the intersections of water, settler colonialism, race-based nationalism, and immigration, with an emphasis on how they impact climate justice.

"A geographer by training, you have taught more than twenty distinct courses across multiple programs," Blitstein said. "Faculty and staff colleagues recognize your dedication and creativity as a teacher, as do students, one of whom writes, “Sigma is one of the professors I'll remember for the rest of my life!” 

Colón holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature and a master’s degree in history from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University.