OUTSTANDING TEACHER AWARDS
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
2006-07
Morgantown, WV, September 13, 2006:
Awards: ECAS Outstanding Teacher Award recipients receive $1,000 awards. They are recognized during Weekend of Honors, and their names are added to the plaque honoring Outstanding Teachers that hangs in Woodburn Hall.
Eligibility: All College faculty are eligible to be nominated for Eberly College Outstanding Teacher awards. The College’s nominees for WVU Foundation Awards for Outstanding Teaching are traditionally drawn from the same nomination pool. However, an individual may be nominated for only one of the awards. A previous recipient of a College award is not eligible again for consideration until the fourth year after the award was received. A previous recipient of the WVU Foundation Outstanding Teaching Award is not eligible for consideration until the seventh year after that award was received.* Junior faculty are usually not competitive for WVU Foundation awards.
Nomination Procedure: Nominations may be made by students, alumni, faculty, Chairs, student organizations, or department committees. There is no formal nomination form. The nomination should consist of a letter addressing the nominee’s skill and achievements, providing the Selection Committee with a broad and/or descriptive picture of the nominee’s contributions to the teaching mission of the College and University. See potential areas of excellence under “Criteria” (below).
The Outstanding Teacher Selection Committee understands that different nominators (i.e., students vs. faculty colleagues) will have different knowledge and different perspectives on what makes their nominee deserve recognition as an Outstanding Teacher, and that nomination letters will therefore differ in style and content depending on the writer. In general, descriptive examples of what the nominee does/has done in the classroom and in other teaching settings make for stronger letters than evaluative statements (e.g., “She is dynamic” or “He cares about students”) without elaboration.
Nominations should be received no later than Friday, October 13, 2006. Please address to:
Outstanding Teacher Awards Committee
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
201 Woodburn Hall
PO BOX 6286
Questions may be directed to Associate Dean Joan Gorham: Joan.Gorham@mail.wvu.edu
Selection Process: The Committee will review the nominations and compile a list of candidates from whom full documentation will be requested. The Committee will make its final recommendations to the Dean in December.
Criteria: Those nominated for the awards should be among the very best teachers in the College. It should be possible to document excellence with respect to a combination of the following (taken from the WVU Foundation teaching award guidelines):
1. Exceptional teaching: mastery of the subject; success in inspiring the spirit of inquiry and curiosity in students; excellent classroom presentation; contributions to student success and achievement in subsequent academic work or after graduation; distinguished work in advising students, directing independent study, theses, and dissertations; publications or other presentations of teaching methods or content; range of teaching/mentoring students in introductory through advanced contexts.
2. Exceptional innovation in instruction: course and curriculum design; developing innovative teaching methods or instructional tools; propagation of teaching methodology or course content through publications and other recognized methods of presentation; integration of faculty research with classroom content and/or methodology.
Results of course evaluations for all courses taught in the past five years (or since the nominee arrived at WVU, if less than five years) must be available for inclusion in the documentation portfolio.
*Not eligible for awards in 2006-07:
College OT Award: Professors Susan Braidi, Adam Komisaruk, Julie Hicks Patrick, Bill Taft, Jaime Toro, Jorge Flores, Aaron Gale, Earl Scime, Steven Zdatny, Katherine Aaslestad, Hong-Jian Lai, Brent McCusker, Mary Ann Samyn
WVU Foundation OT Award: Professors Elizabeth Fones-Wolf, John Kilwein, Jack Renton, Michael Lastinger, Robert Blobaum, Jonathan Cumming, Susan Braidi, Janice Spleth, Jorge Flores, John Goldwasser, Steven Zdatny, , Katherine Aaslestad, Aaron Gale, Hong-Jian Lai
W-V-U