The University of Washington Bothell has given Alan Boss, an assistant professor in the School of Business, its top teaching honor for 2017, the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Chancellor Wolf Yeigh said Boss “consistently performs at the highest level and fully represents the values that faculty and students at the University of Washington Bothell have for teaching and learning.”

Since joining the UW Bothell faculty in 2009, Boss has taught courses in leadership and decision-making, organizational behavior, managing teams, entrepreneurship and strategy.

In his nomination, Boss received praise from his colleagues for his ability to make his courses both intellectually challenging and empowering for students, his talent helping students learn analytical and organizational skills to effect change in the world, and the ways in which he embodies UW Bothell’s campus mission.

Boss is known for giving students a choice of a traditional midterm and research paper — or doing a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) project in which they achieve a goal and then write a term paper on the subject that incorporates at least 10 principles that resonate.

The nomination committee said the common thread among his many supporters was that Boss changes students’ lives for the better.

The UW Bothell Distinguished Teaching Award, created in 1995, is presented each year to a faculty member who has demonstrated sustained excellence in teaching, exemplifying what it means to fulfill the academic mission of the University of Washington Bothell.

The award will be presented June 8 to Boss at the University of Washington’s awards of excellence ceremony in Seattle. The award carries a $5,000 honorarium.