RTF screenwriting professor Stuart Kelban was honored last week during the College of Communication's graduation ceremony. Stuart received the Texas Excellence Award for Teaching, given annually to an outstanding faculty member in the College. Dean Hart had these words:

Stuart is a professional screenwriter with experience writing for both feature films and television.  He has sold screenplays to many of the major studios in Hollywood and has written for such actors and directors as Denzel Washington, Sean Connery, Adam Sandler, and John Woo.  His most recent work, Trafiq, starring Will Ferrell with Adam McKay directing, is a production rewrite for a comedy set in the Green Zone during the early days of the Iraq war.   

His television credits include "Killer Elite,” a 6-part miniseries written for HBO; "The Samurai," a drama pilot for NBC, and "Three Card Monte," written for UPN.  His short fiction has been published in several national literary journals including The Carolina Quarterly and The Crescent Review.  

Stuart received his MFA in fiction-writing from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.  Before coming to the University of Texas at Austin, he taught screenwriting, fiction-writing and literature at Emerson College, Boston College, Harvard University, and Northeastern University.

Students in his introductory and advanced screenwriting courses are quick to recognize Stuart’s dedication to teaching and consistently draw praise from his students.  One student said “Every week, I left his class inspired and energized by the day’s discussion and almost overwhelmed with the possibilities for my writing.”

Another student said: “Having myself been a teacher for a decade before returning to graduate school, I deeply value the art of teaching and believe professor Kelban is truly gifted.  In life you get two or three utterly fantastic teachers that change the way you think.  Professor Kelban is one of these teachers.”