Crystal Farh wins the 2019 PACCAR Award for Excellence in Teaching

Crystal Farh, an associate professor of management and Michael G. Foster Endowed Fellow at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, has won the 2019 PACCAR Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The school’s highest teaching honor was established in 1998 by PACCAR Inc, the Fortune 200 global technology company based in Bellevue, Washington. The PACCAR Award’s annual recipient is selected by a panel of Foster MBA students.

Farh has distinguished herself as one of Foster’s most dynamic and impactful educators. She teaches both the MBA core course in Management and Leadership (MGMT 500) and an MBA elective on Leading and Managing High-Performance Organizations (MGMT 545).

Her students refer to her as “motivating,” “engaging” and “nurturing.” They call her an “incredible communicator” who is “enthusiastic,” “passionate” and “motivating.”

“Crystal has mastered how to teach the most important and difficult of skills: organizational leadership,” wrote one MBA student in nominating Farh for the award. “And she brings joy to her classes while doing it.”

Super scholar, too

Farh joined the Foster School in 2015 after earning a BA in psychology at Harvard University and a PhD in organizational behavior at the University of Maryland Smith School of Business.

Her research explores employee voice (how individuals speak up to fuel creativity and innovation), teams and leadership. And she has published extensively in her young career.

Farh has won numerous awards for her research, including the Wallace Dissertation Research Award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2014), and the Best International Paper Award from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management (2010).

In addition, Farh has been an active and sought-after reviewer. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Academy of Management Journal. She is a reviewer for Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Organization Science.

Farh received the Editorial Board Outstanding Reviewer Award from the Academy of Management Journal (2016) and the Outstanding Reviewer Award from the OB Division of the Academy of Management (2009).

In 2017, she was named an Ascendant Scholar by the Western Academy of Management, a distinction from the west coast affiliate of the Academy of Management that honors a handful of young b-school scholars who have demonstrated an exemplary record of research, teaching and service—and even greater potential.

“Crystal rocks!”

It would appear that Farh has come pretty close to reaching her potential already, in all categories.

But the PACCAR Award is all about teaching.

“Crystal is so skilled at combining research, activities and out-of-class reflection,” commented one of her MBA students. “She has supported the development of each member of the class of 2019 by helping us envision our personal leadership strengths and where we can improve.”

“Crystal was a fantastic LTO professor—bringing in the right amount of student discussion, activities and academic findings to bring management to life,” wrote another. “In her leadership elective, she encouraged reflection and personal growth. Outside the classroom, she’s gone above and beyond to help educate faculty (at students’ request) about how to remove biases and balance participation in the classroom. Oh, and did I mention she had a baby this year? PACCAR Hall is a better place for having Crystal in it.”

Another summed her up simply: “Crystal rocks!”

PACCAR and its founding Pigott family are longtime supporters of the Foster School. In addition to the PACCAR Award and three endowed faculty positions, support from the Pigott family and company was instrumental in building PACCAR Hall, the Foster School’s 135,000-square-foot classroom facility that was completed in 2010.