IUPUI Faculty Member Named French Teacher of the Year

INDIANAPOLIS – To paraphrase a Jerry Lee Lewis song, there is a whole lot of learning going on in the French classes taught by Ellen Sexauer at IUPUI.

Described as a bright and perceptive instructor with an inspiring rapport with students, Sexauer was selected as the 2006 Indiana French Teacher of the Year at the collegiate level by the Executive Board of the Indiana chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French.

“Students always have wonderful things to say about Ellen and about her interactive methodology in working with the material being examined,” said Rosalie Vermette, a French colleague in the School of Liberal Arts’ Department of World Languages and Culture. “There is a lot of student learning of language and culture going on in her classes.”

Sexauer joined IUPUI as associate faculty member in 2001.

Growing up in California, Sexauer developed a love of languages. She went on to teach French and Spanish at the high school and junior college level, before pursuing another dream: skiing. She became, as puts it, a ski bum and then started a skiing school for children at Lake Tahoe. When it was time to send someone to represent U.S. ski areas to a trade-style convention in Paris, Sexauer was picked for the job because of her ability to speak French.

Later, when she moved to Indiana, Sexauer struck out in another direction – law school. She received her law degree from the IU School of Law – Indianapolis and became a public defender in Putnam County.

Even while working as an attorney, though, she was struck by the elements of her work that reminded her of teaching.

“I spent of lot of time with clients educating them, talking to them, trying to reason with them,” she noted. During trials, questioning witnesses and making closing arguments to the jury had a lot in common with teaching, she added.

“When you do things that you really love doing, that’s what you come back to,” Sexauer said of her move to a classroom at IUPUI.