Iowa State University

Teaching Excellence Awards for Fall 2007 - Summer 2008

Teaching Excellence Award Guidelines

(Awards for Outstanding Teaching by Graduate Students)

Nomination Deadlines:

Submit nominations to Felicity Douglas, Graduate College, 1137 Pearson, 50011-2206. Note - Late nominations will not be accepted except by prior arrangement.

Awards Mailed:

NOTE: If you have questions, or want to know which awards your program has already given out, please contact Felicity Douglas in the Graduate College: 294-1958, or fdouglas@iastate.edu.

Purpose of Program: The purpose of these awards is to recognize and encourage outstanding achievement by graduate students in teaching. The intent is to recognize up to 10% of the graduate students involved in teaching each year. The document Teaching Excellence Entitlements (Excel document) shows entitlement information for ISU departments. The program is administered by the Graduate College with additional support from the Graduate and Professional Student Senate.

Description of Awards: Each Teaching Excellence Award consists of a letter of commendation from the ISU President and a certificate of achievement signed by the ISU President and the Graduate Dean. Probably many teaching excellence winners will not be graduating at the time these awards are given, but recipients will also be recognized at the time of their graduation – each will be given an honor cord, cited in the ISU Commencement Program and recognized during the ceremony; the award is also be noted on the student's transcript. At the end of each term a formal photograph is taken of recipients with the ISU President, the Provost and/or the Graduate Dean. Funding is not available through this program to offer cash prizes. However, departments are encouraged to use their own funds for this purpose whenever possible. Any cash prize should be handled directly by the department.

Eligibility: Any graduate student with teaching responsibilities, and who has been on a teaching appointment for at least two terms (including summer sessions), is eligible for an award. Nominees do not necessarily need to be on a C-base appointment, but must be at Iowa State primarily to work on a graduate degree. Recipients of these awards must be enrolled at ISU at the time the awards are given; students who have already graduated are not eligible. A student is eligible for only one Teaching Excellence Award; however, it is possible to grant a student both a Teaching and a Research Excellence Award during his/her academic career. Examples of teaching duties include:

1. serving as the sole instructor for one or more sections of a course;
2. making frequent classroom presentations while not solely responsible for the instruction;
3. serving as discussion leader for a recitation section;
4. serving as laboratory instructor presenting new material or experiments not covered in the lecture section;
5. serving as laboratory instructor reviewing homework assignments and/or answering questions;
6. assisting with setting up experiments, preparing and/or cleaning up before and after class or lab;
7. tutoring students;or staffing a help room and/or assisting students in a lab;
8. proctoring exams, grading homework and/or lab. reports; working on course web pages, or projects;
9. performing other teaching-related duties unique to the department.

It is expected that those nominated for an award would be involved primarily with teaching duties like those described in items 1-5, although additional involvement in items 6-9 is possible.

Nomination Procedure: Awards will be given at the end of each term. It is anticipated that many nominees will not be graduating at the time these awards are given. In these cases, the award will be given now, and the student also recognized later at graduation. See the top of this page for the nomination deadline for awards for this semester. A Teaching Excellence nomination form is available on the website, or you may create your own. Each nomination should include the following:

1. Name of the student (Note: The name will appear on his/her certificate exactly as it is submitted in the nomination papers)
2. Name of the nominating department or program (the one in charge of the courses being taught)
3. Name of the student's home department (if different from #2)
4. Name of student's major professor
5. Kind of degree student is working on (masters or Ph.D.) and expected time of graduation
6. Student ID number
7. Amount of cash prize to be given, if any, by nominating department in conjunction with award
8. Name of person in your department and campus address to whom the award will be mailed at the end of this semester e.g. yourself, the graduate secretary, chair, or DOGE. Note - Awards are not mailed to the students.
9. The name and signature of the Department Chair (or other authorized person)
10. A description of the student's achievements: the duties for which the student is being recognized and/or the method used in selecting the student for this award

Selection Process: The process of selection is the responsibility of each department or interdepartmental program. In cases where departments hire students from other departments to teach courses for them, the hiring or employing department is responsible for recommending these students for awards (i.e. the department that organizes and supervises the courses to be taught).

Departments/interdepartmental programs are encouraged to develop a procedure for evaluating teaching performance (if not already in place). For programs wishing to establish a formal review process, the following ideas are offered:

• Consider the establishment of a committee of people that have direct knowledge of the individuals' teaching performance and responsibilities, and who have experience evaluating academic performance, such as TA coordinators, department chairs, teaching faculty, and past Teaching Excellence Award recipients.
• Consider methods of evaluation (e.g. direct observations, interviews with TAs, student evaluations and testimonials).
• Consider other factors such as 1) improvement and development; 2) difficulty of the teaching assignment; and 3) differences in teaching styles.

Award Method: Awards will be mailed to the nominating departments at the end of each semester. (The exact dates are given at the top of this page.) Departments will be responsible for presenting the awards and will have the opportunity to supplement the award with a cash prize at that time. Each nominee will be given an award provided the student meets the eligibility requirements and the department has sufficient entitlement to cover the award (or has made provisions to do so in special cases).

Click here to read the Teaching Excellence Award frequently asked questions.

If you have any questions about this program, please contact Felicity Douglas in the Graduate College SPEAK/TEACH Program: 294-1958, or fdouglas@iastate.edu

Note: all dates and deadlines for the current year are given at the top of this page

The Fountain of the Four Seasons, one of many pieces on campus created by Christian Petersen, has graced the front of the Memorial Union since 1941.