For Alexaner Hardan, a doctoral candidate in Musicology and Ethnomusicology, the true heart of education isn't found in a cinematic lecture hall, but in the quiet, "invisible" hours of preparation: the meticulous selection of a reading, the shaping of a question, or a transformative comment left in the margins of a student’s draft. 

It is this dedication to the hidden architecture of learning that has earned Hardan the 2026 Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching.

That attention to craft is something his students describe as quietly transformative. In the margins of submitted work and across countless office hours, Hardan helped students improve thesis statements, sharpen arguments, and use both source material and original analysis thoughtfully.

"Alex played a critical role in my development as a writer during my first semester at Brown. In the margins of my canvas submissions, he struck a balance between rigorous critique and thoughtful encouragement. His feedback challenged me to clarify my own arguments," shares undergraduate nominator Léo Corzo-Clark. "His instruction was essential to my writing skills and confidence that served me throughout my time at Brown."

Without hesitation Hardan shares that Sounding Gender: Music, Identity, and Sexuality, a course he designed and taught last spring, has been his favorite. It was the first time he was designing and teaching a class as the primary instructor. 

He started the course believing he had a solid command of the material and discovered, almost immediately, how much he still had to learn. Students in the course came from departments across the university: concentrators in music and gender studies, but also historians, linguists, political theorists, and undeclared first-years. 

“Precisely because of this diversity, they brought perspectives to our discussions that I could never have anticipated. This is what I value most about teaching at Brown: the shared willingness—on both sides of the seminar table—to venture into uncharted intellectual territory and to do so with confidence, humility, and grace,” says Hardan.

That spirit extended to how Hardan approached sensitive material. He designed lessons with his students' interests and experiences in mind, building a classroom culture where difficult questions felt like invitations rather than risks, and a space where personal perspectives could enter the conversation without hesitation.

Hardan will be graduating in May after completing his dissertation, Listening for Sovietization in Cold War Cuba, which traces the sonic and ideological remains of the Soviet-Cuban musical exchange in the wake of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. The dissertation argues that the fabled “Russian School” of musical performance became a legitimizing paradigm that fashioned Cuban musical subjects in the image of the ideal Soviet virtuoso. 

Hardan expressed deep appreciation for the recognition, noting that it comes at a time when the traditional mission of the humanities often feels under pressure. He had wondered whether a pedagogical approach centered on embracing difficulty, sitting with ambiguity, and encouraging students to engage with unfamiliar ideas could still find purchase in the modern classroom. This past year gave him his answer.

"My students met me with a willingness to show up, week after week, with grace, commitment, and intellectual courage. They did not shy away from hard questions; they leaned into them," he says.

For Hardan, his students modeled how to persist in the pursuit of knowledge even when that mission feels uncertain, leading him to conclude that the recognition belongs to them as much as it does to him.

“Alex is an incredible human. He is not only effective as a teacher and devoted as a mentor; he is interpersonally compelling,” says Corzo-Clark.

Kimberly Stephanie Meza, Hannah Shabtian, Katyayni Seth, and Alexander F. Hardan receive Excellence in Teaching Awards at the University Awards Ceremony on April 29, 2026.