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. Nominees must be enrolled full-time and demonstrate 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. The number of nominations within a program must be limited to those students who are exceptional.

3. Nominees should have outstanding student evaluations. If the program does not collect student evaluations, the nominee can communicate directly with former or current students and request statements in support of their teaching.  The more concrete these testimonials, the more useful for the judges.  Formal evaluations measure whether the TA or IOR was organized, responsive, effective, approachable, etc.; letters from students can address similar themes. Nominees without student evaluations are unlikely to succeed in the award process. 

4. Nominees should have original teaching materials that support their nomination. 

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

Important dates:

• February 17: Instructions to all the nominees will be sent out

• February 17 to March 20: all the nominees must collect the requested documentation and submit their packet no later than 5 pm on March 20

• March 24: Finalists will be notified by email

• Mid-April: All finalists will be invited to a ceremony where the winners will be announced