"It took me about 48 hours to receive alumni comments for Ann in support of this award," Domer said. "All I had to say was 'Ann Folino White' in the title and boom, everybody responded immediately."

11 quotes from alumni of the Department of Theater at Michigan State University are included in the nomination letter, all of which rave about the lasting influence of Folino White’s teaching and mentorship.  

Wes Haskell, a company manager for the Broadway show "Days of Wine and Roses," contributed to the recommendation. He received his master’s of fine arts in acting in 2012. 

"Through her innovative teaching, directing and mentoring methods and her unwavering dedication, Dr. Ann Folino White cultivated in me a mindset of creative and critical thinking that continues to shape my professional development over a decade later," Haskell wrote in his testimonial. 

Being nominated for the award by her colleagues was one thing, but knowing that former students also had a say was the most significant part of winning the award for Folino White.

"Being acknowledged by my colleagues from around the world is a really, really special thing for teaching and mentorship," Folino White said. "But my students, my former students, and my mentees thinking that I was worthy of that is the real honor, because they're giving me credit for helping them achieve their goals, and that's huge."

Folino White didn’t always want to be a teacher. When she entered MSU for her undergraduate degree in theater years ago, she had every intention of becoming an actor. But eventually, through the study groups and rehearsals of her undergraduate career, Folino White began to discover that her passion for learning came before her passion for performance.  

Outside of the classroom, she was committed to helping her peers study and she was good at it. In rehearsals, she found herself caring less about performance and more for the environment of rehearsals themselves. 

"I discovered that I liked learning and I discovered that I liked sharing learning, and learning along with people … and I love history, and I'm pretty good at it," Folino White said.

All of these new discoveries about herself finally culminated in a decision, made in her senior year at MSU, that she wanted to be a professor. 

After graduating from MSU, Folino White went on to get her master’s in theater and her PhD in interdisciplinary theater and drama from Northwestern University. Her career came full circle when she was hired to fill a joint appointment in the Residential College of Arts and Humanities and the Department of Theater at MSU in 2008. 

"Totally weird to walk into a building where you were figuring out who you were and who you wanted to be, and returning," Folino White said. "It felt good and it felt weird, because you make a lot of memories in a place, and you walk into a place and it smells the same."

Two years after she returned to MSU, she was hired to work full time as a faculty member within the Department of Theater. Folino White is able to fulfill her passion for learning and teaching through her courses within the department and as a director for various shows put on by the department of theater. 

Since then, she has learned a lot about what it takes to be an effective teacher and mentor.

When she first entered the academia space, there was an expectation of what a professor looked like and acted like. Folino White realized the importance of departing from that and being herself in the classroom. 

"We have preconceived notions, both those of us who are instructors and our students that come to us, about what a professor is," she said. "It's a tough thing to get past, because you think you should be one thing, but when you realize you don't have to be, and when you realize you can just bring yourself to the space, I think more learning occurs."

At the heart of Folino White’s instruction and teaching philosophy is the development and encouragement of critical thinking skills. One of the largest lessons she has learned during her time as an instructor, is the importance of teaching students how to question and challenge concepts, she said.

"Sometimes it’s not about what an instructor knows … it's about helping students learn how to think, how to question things, to always be questioning things," Folino White said. "Sometimes it’s a challenge, but asking from what is it, to how is it, to why is it."

Folino White's teaching philosophy lends itself to the development of critical thinking. Interdisciplinarity is integral to the study of theater, she said, and this is one of the core elements of her philosophy. 

"Theater sometimes is about theater, but very rarely," she said. "Usually the content is about relationships, so it might be about gender dynamics, domestic dynamics or race dynamics. Theater is about politics and economics and global catastrophe. Usually the stories are about something else, so you have to understand the something else."

Folino White’s commitment to the history and study of theater is apparent to her colleagues, said Domer, who has worked with her in the classroom and outside of it.  

"Ann has very high standards and expectations, because she believes that theater scholarship and our profession is very important, and studying the history and understanding the history in order to be better theater professionals," Domer said. 

Alongside the study of theater, Folino White is committed to making her students better students. She incorporates the importance of prioritization and decision making into her teaching philosophy. 

"Being a good student is about making active, intentional decisions about your learning, setting priorities, setting goals, and learning about yourself and how you best learn," Folino White said. "And I am really good. I don't know why. I don't know what it is about me, but I'm really good at understanding how students learn."

Domer said he sees the effects of Folino White’s philosophy on students and can tell why she is an effective teacher. 

"They know that she's not going to mince words," Domer said. "She's going to say: 'Here's the goal. How far are you going to get there? And how can we help you reach it next time?' And so I think that the lack of grayness with her as an educator, students are drawn to it because they know they're getting the truth."