Nomination Process:

The campus community will be informed about the award and nomination process via an article in the Campus Chronicle, a campus-wide email, or the Torch. Nominations may be made by any member of the University community (students, faculty, staff, and administrators) by notifying the dean of the appropriate college by JANUARY 25. Note: Nominations from individual faculty members and academic units themselves are encouraged. Nominators should submit a one-page nomination letter, maximum 300 words, citing the area of particular excellence and concisely arguing for the faculty member’s or unit’s selection.

Documentation Requirements:

The dean of each college contacts the nominees and requests that they submit a one-page (front only) pedagogically-oriented CV, a narrative supporting their finalist status, and attachments of up to six pages of supporting evidence. In the case of academic unit finalists, no CV is necessary. 

The narrative, maximum 1,000 words, should address ONE of these relevant questions: 

1. Course Development - What is your image of an excellent course? How are the elements you see as essential to an excellent course grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning and reflected in your teaching?
2. Pedagogy - What is your image of excellent teaching? How are the characteristics you see as essential to excellent teaching grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning and reflected in your teaching?
3. Faculty -Student Rapport - How do you believe a positive faculty-student relationship supports student learning? How is that belief grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning and reflected in your interactions with students?

The narrative and attachments should provide concrete evidence to support the nominee's case. The narrative and attachments should include evidence from, for example: syllabi, course assignments, course assessments, student correspondence, student evaluations, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. The narrative should also address the criteria on the relevant rubric and any relevant university-wide student learning objectives.

Screening Process:

The dean of each college chooses, after consultation with the relevant screening committee, a finalist or finalists (in the case of Arts and Sciences).  The names and nomination packet, along with a letter of support from the dean, are forwarded to the Provost’s Office. One finalist will be submitted from the colleges of Business, Christ College, Engineering, and Nursing. The College of Arts and Sciences may submit up to six finalists. The Committee to Enhance Learning and Teaching will select the award recipients from the list of finalists.

Each screening committee will be composed of three full-time faculty members and two student members.  The faculty-student committee selection process is not defined by the Committee to Enhance Learning and Teaching.  Colleges with small faculty numbers may elect to request faculty who serve an adjunct role within that unit to serve as members of the screening committee.

Each college screening committee may choose to have the finalist(s) not selected to receive the award for teaching excellence, automatically resubmitted as a finalist during the next two successive years.  After that time, however, the committee must reconsider this candidate(s) along with other new nominations.