UC Riverside Academic Senate

Nominations Now Open for 2012 Distinguished Teaching Award

The Committee on Distinguished Teaching is soliciting nominations for the 2010-2011 Distinguished Teaching Award. Nominees must be members of the Academic Senate and should have been active on campus long enough to have demonstrated sustained excellence in teaching. Nominees must receive three or more nominating letters from students and/or faculty to be considered for this award by February 3, 2012. Each nominator should submit directly to the Committee on Distinguished Teaching, Academic Senate Office a complete letter which must include at least the following information:

1. A statement explaining the nominee's qualifications and
2. Nominator's name and address.

Upon receipt of three letters of nomination by February 3, 2012, the Committee on Distinguished Teaching will request all available pertinent material from heads of departments and programs to be submitted by February 24, 2012. If the nominators wish to suggest additional sources of supportive materials, they are encouraged to do so.

Nominees of previous years will require re-nomination to be considered by this year's committee. Previous awardees are not eligible.

• Please send all nomination letters to:

• All documents can also be emailed to sarah.miller@ucr.edu.

A Guide for Distinguished Teaching Award Nominations

The Committee on Distinguished Teaching wishes to de-mystify the process of how recipients of the Distinguished Teaching award are chosen from the many nominations we receive for each annual competition.  It must be noted outright that there are many deserving candidates nominated each year; indeed, it is rewarding to learn of the collective teaching excellence on our campus and the commitment of the faculty to our students.  As such, it is exceptionally difficult to decide among the glowing files of our colleagues, and many factors are taken into consideration to identify the awardees.  Here are several influential factors that go into the Committee’s deliberations:

1. A continuous, rich history of outstanding student teaching evaluations, both numerical and narrative.  Nominators must understand that virtually all candidates have achieved a long-term record of excellence and rarely does this single criterion separate one candidate from another.  Such a teaching record is generally earned across lower, upper division, and graduate courses, though the committee recognizes that some faculty may be affiliated exclusively with graduate programs.
2. Peer-review letters from colleagues, both on and off-campus, provide useful documentation from a different perspective than can be gleaned from student evaluations.
3. Letters from current UCR students; unsolicited letters are especially prized.
4.  “Legacy” letters from former students attesting how the instructional experience with the candidate has impacted their career paths and their current success.  These letters would come from students who are themselves established in their careers.
5. Documenting how the candidate has provided innovative additions to your departmental or programmatic curriculum, or novel ways of cross-college partnering on our campus to deliver interdisciplinary instruction.
6. Documenting educational outreach activities undertaken by the candidate.  These efforts could be in support of K-12 education in the community, workshops at national or international meetings, and/or instruction in professional courses (for example, in the sciences, such courses are held at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratories and at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories).