Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award

The Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award recognizes students who are nominated by their faculty supervisors for their work as teaching assistants. Two awards are presented: One award recognizes Teaching Assistants who have served as Instructors of Record for a minimum of one prior semester. This award category recognizes graduate students performing all the responsibilities of a stand-alone Instructor fully in charge of the course. One award recognizes Teaching Assistants who have performed the range of TA responsibilities in assistance to a faculty member, including running lab sessions, but who have never served as stand-alone Instructors of Record.

A monetary award is given along with engraved plaque.

Nominations Process:

• A statement of the nominee’s teaching philosophy;

• A sample of recent teaching evaluations; use only those with meaningful comments; limit 10 pages;

• A sample of teaching materials prepared by the nominee; limit 10 pages;

• A list of training events/workshops relevant to teaching attended by the nominee;

• One letter of recommendation from someone who has worked closely with the nominee in their teaching capacity.

It is the nominee’s responsibility to collect all the items listed above except for their letter of recommendation. The author of the letter should email it directly to Daniel.Jones@uncc.edu. All the items listed above comprise the complete application package. The complete application package must be submitted as one PDF file containing all necessary documents (except for the recommendation letter).

Criteria:

1. Nominee must have demonstrated superior teaching skills while serving as an instructor in the classroom or laboratory, or assisting the professor with teaching in the classroom or laboratory.

2. Nominee should have outstanding student evaluations. If the program in which the nominee teaches does not collect student evaluations, the nominee must offer equivalent substitutions. Nominees without student evaluations are unlikely to succeed in the award process.

3. Nominee should have original teaching materials that support their nomination.

4. Nominee must have had significant teaching responsibilities for at least two semesters. The current semester may be counted.

5. Nominees must be enrolled full-time.

6. Nominees must be able to request a letter of recommendation from a faculty member who has worked closely with them in their teaching role. This letter can be from the faculty member who nominated them.

Selection Process:

The winners will be announced and honored at a reception in the spring. In addition, the winners each will receive a $1,000 award and a commemorative plaque as recognition from the Graduate School.