Outstanding Teaching Award

This award acknowledges strong commitment to teaching and student success; excellence in teaching practices that reflect the highest standards of pedagogy; a record of outstanding teaching effectiveness within and outside the classroom; effective course design or program development; and the ability to inspire, promote, and sustain students’ intellectual growth emphasizing independent inquiry and critical thinking.

Award Criteria

The award committee will look for persuasive evidence that nominees:

  • Are strongly committed to teaching and learning. This commitment might be demonstrated through activities designed to advance the quality and practice of teaching and learning, to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and/or global and multicultural understanding;

  • Use effective teaching strategies to enhance student learning, including, but not limited to innovative uses of technology, active learning, High-Impact Practices, and assessment;

  • Have a strong commitment to fostering the academic success of students through interaction with students outside of the classroom (e.g., advising, mentoring, recruiting, etc.).

The following are non-ranked examples of accomplishments that may be included as evidence.

  • Evidence of consistent excellent teaching;

  • Student success and/or accomplishments;

  • Advising and/or mentoring of students (e.g., internships, directed studies, study abroad);

  • Mentoring of other faculty;

  • Evidence of reflective teaching;

  • Intellectually rigorous, creative, and engaging pedagogy;

  • Teaching workshops, invited talks, or presentations;

  • External awards and recognitions by local, national, and international organizations for teaching excellence;

  • Sustained contributions to curriculum development, and/or innovative instructional techniques and technologies.

Eligibility

Any full-time teaching faculty is eligible to be nominated for the award. Administrators with faculty rank are ineligible for faculty awards (i.e., receives a Contract for Faculty Ranked Administrators). Previous award winners of this award (under any of its previous names) are not eligible to apply again. The award recipient must be under contract at KSU when the award is presented.

Award Amount

Each award consists of $10,000.

Number and Frequency of Awards

Up to two (2) awards may be presented annually, selected based on the qualifications of nominees.

Nomination Procedures

Each college is responsible for creating the process by which their nominees are chosen. College deans or their designees submit nominations. There are no limits on the number of nominees each college can submit. The selection committee can reactivate nominations submitted for 2 years after the original submission.

Nominations packets should include:

  • A completed Cover Sheet with signatures;

  • A 3-5 page summary statement by the nominee highlighting their excellence in teaching in relation to the award criteria. The summary must be created using 12-point Times New Roman font with one-inch margins;

  • A condensed curriculum vitae (2-3 pages);

  • A support letter from the nominee’s academic home chair; jointly appointed faculty may submit a joint letter from both chairs or two separate letters;

  • A maximum of three letters in support of the nomination, in addition to the chair’s letter (please note KSU deans are not eligible to provide a letter);

  • Multiple measures of teaching excellence;

  • Any other appendix materials useful to build the case;

  • All materials must be compiled into a single pdf document;

  • The packet must not exceed 20 pages. The Cover Sheet does not count toward the 20-page limit.

Evaluation Criteria and Procedures

The selection committee will look for originality, creativity and productivity and for evidence of outstanding teaching and mentoring. Nominations will be evaluated by a university committee including one member from each of the degree granting colleges, and the Executive Director for Faculty Development and Recognition. Since members serving on this committee may not be experts in the nominee's field, it is important that nominations be submitted in language understandable to faculty in other disciplines.

Submission Procedure

To submit a nomination, the college dean or their representative should:

  1. Prepare each nomination application as a separate file, ensuring the correct cover page for the award is attached as the first page of the file.

  2. Click on the name of your college below to access the OneDrive folder where you will upload the nomination packet(s) for your college.
    (If access is denied, please contact CETL at cetl@kennesaw.edu or 470-578-6410.)

  3. Click on the Upload button at the top of the page in OneDrive to upload each nomination file.

The college dean and each nominee will receive a confirmation email for their nomination within the next business day.

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