"What is truly remarkable about Angelina," one of her students wrote in a nominating letter, "is that she has an ability that is rare among people, let alone professors: she has the power to teach people to care."

That gets to the heart of what the three-year-old Clowes Award is about. Named after the late faculty member in the Comparative History of Ideas Program, it honors innovative contributions to teaching and learning that go beyond conventional classroom experiences.

The award carries a $3,000 stipend. In addition, $2,000 goes to the recipient's program or department to support student participation.

An assistant professor in the Jackson School of International Studies and the undergraduate Law, Societies and Justice Program, Godoy said she was drawn to studying human rights as a result of her extensive personal experiences traveling in Latin America, propelled in part by the fact her mother was born in Bogotá.

What moves her is "the everyday heroism" Godoy observed working with people "for whom the struggle for human rights represents the struggle to put food on their table. To me, that's deeply inspiring and very humbling, too."

At a big campus like the UW, Godoy said, "oftentimes people can have sort of an impersonal experience, or can come to my classroom thinking they're going to obtain some knowledge or some kind of credentials from me."

Godoy said she resists the notion of college as a mill to earn a meal ticket for some later-in-life objective. "With the subjects I teach, that really deprives students of a much richer learning opportunity," she said.

For example, this summer, for the second year in a row, Godoy plans to lead a contingent of some 15 students to Guatemala to observe daily life firsthand. That includes a visit to a coffee plantation in San Jeronimo, where 26 families "have been living under … slave-labor conditions," according to one student who participated last year.

Another who accompanied Godoy last year, Jen Caldwell, recounted that Godoy did not ask for the traditional scholarly research paper.

"Instead, Angelina required two things from us: that we keep a journal for personal reflections, commentaries and criticisms of the assigned readings and class experiences we had while in Guatemala, and that we complete some sort of project based on our experience once we returned to Seattle," Caldwell wrote in a nominating letter.

Moved by the living conditions they witnessed, her classmates helped raise "more than $6,000 through our independent student group (Committee in Solidarity with the People of San Jeronimo) to help send children on coffee plantations to school, promoting Fair Trade Certified coffee — meaning it was produced under conditions less oppressive than usual — and meeting with local organizations and individuals to share the impact of our excursion," Caldwell said.

Asked if she regards herself as a political activist, Godoy replied, "I think there's no way to study these kinds of human problems and grave injustices in our world without engaging in politics in some way."

"I don't believe," she added, "that it's my job to tell students how to become politically involved or which side they should be on or what they should do. But I do believe there's a responsibility that comes with awareness … It's up to students' own consciences and political orientation and personal background to decide what they're going to do."

One tangible way in which Godoy and her students have put their ideas into action is by asking Tully's Coffee to provide espresso drinks made only from beans that are Fair Trade Certified.

Tully's, with a 10-year contract to provide coffee on campus, responded very positively, Godoy said. That means the UW soon could join other universities, including Cornell and the University of California, Berkeley, which already have adopted policies requiring that only 100 percent Fair Trade Certified coffee be sold.

"The coffee example is a brilliant one," Godoy said, "because it isn't so remote. The conditions under which that product was produced are directly connected to what (students) are drinking."