Portada Receives 2025 Wiesenberger Award for Excellence in Teaching

Portada Receives 2025 Wiesenberger Award for Excellence in Teaching

Photo (L to R): Alex Ogeka, executive director, KU Foundation; Cara Basile, director, Alumni Engagement; Dr. Robert Portada III, professor and department chair, Philosophy and Government; Dr. Philip Cavalier, university president.

KUTZTOWN, Pa. - Dr. Robert Portada III, professor and department chair of Philosophy and Government, received Kutztown University's 2025 Arthur and Isabel Wiesenberger Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award is presented annually to a faculty member who has demonstrated superlative teaching skills and service to the university.

Portada's record of scholarly publications covers political dynamics in countries across Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He has received KU grants for his research on private security companies in South Sudan.

Portada has served as chair of the Department of Philosophy and Government since 2023, overseeing continued operation and curricular changes of the department's undergraduate and graduate programs. He helped create the Master of Public Administration (MPA) with Political Science 4+1 accelerated graduate program in 2024.

Portada teaches multiple Political Science courses at KU, including Introduction to International Relations, Introduction to World Politics, Politics of Cuba and the Caribbean, Politics of Latin America, Social Movements and Revolutions, and International Relations Theory.

He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in political science from the University of Notre Dame in 2008.