UWI/Guardian Life Premium Teaching Award

The UWI/ Guardian Life Limited Premium Teaching Excellence Lecture and Award came into being in 2004 after a Memorandum of Agreement was signed between Guardian Life Limited (GLL) and the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus for GLL to be the co-sponsor of the lecture series and teaching excellence awards. The decision to work towards establishing an Award specifically for teaching at the UWI arose from the concern of the coordinators of the IDU (now the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning)  on all three land campuses that the teaching function was not given the attention and value it deserves in the university. The prevailing view was that it was difficult, if not impossible to judge good teaching. However, there was recognition that the use of a teaching portfolio/dossier was gaining prominence on university campuses across the world and was becoming the preferred approach taken by many universities to judge teaching and teaching excellence for awards. It was decided to use this approach in the UWI/Guardian Life premium teaching Award. Initially, Guardian Life agreed to assist with faculty development workshops for the training of faculty in developing appropriate teaching portfolios. It was also agreed that the panel of judges for the Award should be external to the UWI. 

Download the Guidelines and Procedures HERE

In 1998, Mrs. Betty Rohlehr, the then Coordinator of the Instructional Development Unit (IDU) (now Centre for Excellence in teaching and Learning) at the St. Augustine Campus was successful in getting Guardian Life to sponsor a Premium Teaching Award for that campus. This was initially extended by Guardian Life to the other two land campuses. Unfortunately, the Award in Barbados was short lived by it persisted in Trinidad and Jamaica.  From those early days it was decided that a Teaching Excellence Award could be offered every other year beginning in 2000 and a feature guest speaker focusing on aspects of teaching in the intervening year. Awardees would be selected and evaluated on the basis of a Teaching Portfolio which articulates a personal philosophy of teaching. This approach was chosen because the portfolio was understood to be a self-reflective document which forced a university lecturer to evaluate his or her teaching and provide supporting documentation as evidence of good teaching. It was also decided that the portfolio would be objectively judged by academics having no acquaintance with the nominees.