The Karl G. Maeser Excellence in Teaching Awards

Deadline for nominations: February 15, 2008

Submit nominations to:
Faculty Awards Committee
c/o Associate Academic VP-Faculty
D-387 ASB

Eligibility: All full-time faculty members, professorial or professional, who have been at the University for at least five years prior to the nomination are eligible, except for the Abraham O. Smoot Citizenship Award which requires 15 years of service. All awards are presented to faculty who have demonstrated exceptional work in the areas of citizenship, teaching, and research/creative work. Although some are honored principally for distinction in one area, the expectation in each instance is that the recipient will have made notable contributions in all three areas. The Part-time Faculty Excellence Award is designated for part-time faculty with at least five years of continuous part-time service.

Who may nominate: Anyone may nominate a candidate for these awards, but all nominations must be submitted through the nominee's Department Chair and Dean. The Faculty Awards Committee may make an independent nomination for any award.

General Information: Each recipient of this award will receive a cash award of $3,500, and be recognized at the annual University conference in August 2008.  Superior teaching is demonstrated by characteristics that include but are not limited to the following:

1. The awardee's teaching is rigorous and based on high expectations of students.

2. The awardee's teaching is successfully directed toward comprehension, understanding, and reasoning.

3. The three general criteria (University citizenship, teaching, and research/creative work) are interdependent. The awardee's teaching is significantly influenced by his or her citizenship and research or creative work. As a citizen, the awardee both understands and takes responsibility for the University and society. His or her research is influenced by teaching and is appropriately evaluated by peers in the wide community of the discipline.

4. One of the Maeser Excellence in Teaching Awards may be given to honor a faculty member who is doing innovative work to enhance learning through instructional design, pedagogical innovations, or student mentoring.

Nomination Procedures

Nomination packets should be prepared by a colleague of the nominee and not by the nominee. Any faculty member nominated should be nominated for only one award. For this reason it is important that the nomination letter focus on the criteria specific to the award for which the professor is nominated. The Faculty Awards Committee reserves the right to consider any nominee for an alternative award if it seems more appropriate. Please be judicious in the material included. Nominations that most impress the Awards Committee are ones that are concise, well organized, carefully written, and contain documented evidence of citizenship, teaching, and research/creative or professional work. Nomination packets may not exceed 20 pages (plus the Cover Sheet Appendix as described below). Please include the following items in the order listed:

1. The Cover Sheet provided herein must be the first page of your nomination packet.

2. A nominating letter of 3 to 5 pages, prepared by a colleague, which summarizes the professor’s work and qualifications for the award. The letter should put the nominee’s accomplishments in perspective and provide an evaluative assessment of performance in all areas of faculty responsibility (teaching, citizenship, and research and creative work, or professional assignments). For example:

Research and Creative Arts Award - you might emphasize creative art works, scholarly papers, prizes or awards, funded research grants (including amounts, sources, reviewer comments), patents awarded, etc.

Professional Faculty Excellence Award - you might include a description of the expectations and the particular assignments that apply to the professional position. Include information that will place the professional work in an evaluative context within the profession.

Excellence in Teaching Award - you might emphasize teacher and course evaluations, peer review of teaching, activities in course development and improvement, the scholarship of teaching, or innovative approaches to teaching including the use of technology.

Part-time Faculty Excellence Award - you might include a description of the expectations and duties, including teaching, that the part-time faculty member has been assigned. You might emphasize teacher and course evaluations, activities in course development or other professional development, and the importance of the contribution made by the part-time faculty member over a period of time.

3. The nominator will submit the nomination packet to the nominee's Department Chair. The Department Chair will review each nomination and add a 1-2 page personal evaluation letter to the packet. If appropriate, the Chair may rework the nomination to strengthen it.

4. The Department Chair will forward the packet to the Dean of the nominee's college, who may add a 1-2 page personal evaluation letter to the nomination packet.

5. For a Research and Creative Arts Award, and for the Maeser Distinguished Faculty Award, the nomination packet should include no more than three outside letters of evaluation of the faculty member’s work. Internal letters of evaluation may also be included.

6. The Appendix should include:

(a) an abbreviated curriculum vitae (5 pages max.) for the nominee. Things that might be emphasized are history of employment, awards, publications, works of art, innovations, research grants and amounts, courses taught, consulting, and service, and

(b) a summary of all student evaluations of courses taught for the previous five years. This summary can be obtained from Teacher Evaluation Services (ext. 2-2862), 265 HGB, and may be requested by the nominee or the nominee’s Chair or Dean. Other materials such as samples of publications or creative works deemed important to the nomination may be sent to the committee to be kept on file and considered at the Committee’s discretion.

The Dean will submit the nominations to the Faculty Awards Committee by February 15, 2008. The Committee encourages electronic submission of nomination packets sent via email to the committee (see nomination form for e-mail address.) It may be necessary to scan certain materials and documents in order to submit them electronically. Paper nominations will also be accepted as in years past.