Chemistry teacher Ankanke Mason-Hogans helps students on an assignment. She started at Riverside last year as a student teacher before taking a full-time position in 2024-25. Photo by Kalissa Everett.
Akanke Mason-Hogans wins Beginning Teacher of the Year
Chemistry teacher Akanke Mason-Hogans is Riverside’s 2025 Beginning Teacher of the Year.
The award is given to the teacher who has three or fewer years of experience.
Mason-Hogans learned she won when Riverside administrators and photographers entered her room on Feb. 11 to present the award.
This is Mason-Hogans’ second year at Riverside. Last year she was a student teacher.
She originally didn’t think of teaching as a career path or a passion and went to college for chemical engineering.
“It was one of the first things where I was like ‘Yeah, I could do this,’” Mason-Hogans said.
One of her reasons for choosing chemical engineering was financially motivated.
“A family member told me chemical engineering is basically engineering but you make more money,” she said.
She learned later that that wasn’t true. During her junior year of college she started having second thoughts about the career and realized it wasn’t something she would want to do for the rest of her life.
“It was a really weird and hard time for me,” she said. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and it wasn’t until that point I started volunteering (at schools) and trying to find a purpose.”
She decided that she was going to finish her chemical engineering degree and then go back to college for teaching. In June 2023 she went to Duke to get her masters and started teaching.
Teachers and students alike believe she deserves the award and the recognition.
“It’s definitely the efforts of her hard work that brought about such an honor,” said chemistry and forensics teacher Tavia Webley, who worked with Mason-Hogans’ while she student-taught last year. “I’m very proud of her.”
Webley said Mason-Hogans cares about her students.
“She wants to make the subject matter relatable and she wants to take her students to the next level, and I think those are the things that make her great,” she said. “I know that her future is going to be bright, she has a lot of dreams and aspirations so I know she will reach them all.”
“I myself voted for her,” said physical science teacher Benjamin Drugatz. “You can see the amount of effort she puts in. I saw her spend many hours outside the school day working on her class and working on projects for her students.”
Drugatz also completed the Duke Master of Arts in Teaching program with Mason-Hogans last year.
“[Colleagues] probably see how kind and caring she is for her students,” he said. “ and if you have ever been in her classroom…her classroom just looks fantastic.”
Sophomore Franklin Buchanan said Mason-Hogans creates a great environment.
“I think the atmosphere is very inviting,” Buchanan said. “Unlike a lot of beginning teachers, she brings a lot more energy.”
“She is really nice,” said Sophomore Zakariyya El Genk. “She breaks things down for you and gives you time to adjust. When I go in the classroom it’s silent and it gives me time to cut my thoughts and get ready for class”.
“I think she won because she really tries to talk to students and understand them on a deeper level,” said El Genk. “She takes her job very seriously.”
