Any faculty member or administrator at IU South Bend may nominate another full-time faculty member who has completed five full years (is in the sixth year or more of service) of teaching on this campus. Self-nominations will not be considered.
The nominator shall submit their desire to nominate a colleague to the nominee’s Dean; the Dean will confirm that the faculty member accepts the nomination. The nominee shall then have primary responsibility for assembling the teaching portfolio except for the confidential solicited letters of reference, which are to be requested by the nominator. The nominator and the Director of the University Center for Excellence in Teaching (UCET) are available to ensure the strongest possible presentation of the teaching portfolio.
The nomination dossier outlined here is designed to align with dossier requirements for university-wide teaching award nominations. However, to be considered for an All-University Teaching Award, one need not be a recipient of an IU South Bend Distinguished Teaching Award.
Successful distinguished teaching awards nomination dossiers differ by discipline, but nomination dossiers should not exceed 80 pages and must contain the following material:
The letter of nomination (maximum two pages; provided by the nominator) must provide overwhelming evidence of a candidate’s long career of distinguished teaching with reference to specific teaching qualities and activities that align with the award criteria and advances their nomination for a distinguished teaching award.
This statement of self-reflection is of central importance and is given much weight in deliberations. Nominees should keep in mind that the committee is concerned with the nominee’s rigor as a teacher.
The statement should be between five and eight double-spaced pages and address the following:
The nominee’s teaching philosophy and how it is implemented
How the nominee has enlarged the content or elevated the intellectual level of their courses, programs, departments, degrees, curricula, and students
How the nominee has engaged constructive feedback from student evaluations and peer reviews to improve teaching
How the nominee’s teaching activities have contributed to the intellectual growth of the students, the nominee, and the unit
A current, teaching focused CV
Course dates and enrollments should be included, along with an indication of level (lower-level undergraduate, upper-level undergraduate, graduate), as well as modality of delivery (in-person, hybrid, and/or online).
The dossier must include a summary of the nominee’s student course evaluations for the last three years, and these should be comprehensive rather than selective. Although the committee wishes to see all qualitative comments, it only wants a summary of the quantitative scores. This summary should include an analysis of the results and an explanation of how the evaluations were administered. Additionally, the nominee may provide summary tables that show course-evaluation scores over a longer period. Do not include copies of the original student evaluations.
One to three formal peer review letters from faculty members familiar with a nominee’s work should be included in the dossier. A peer review based on multiple observations of a nominee’s classroom teaching is essential and will be given significantly more weight than one based on the nominee’s general reputation. Providing peer/administrative reviews that encompass several semesters are strongly encouraged, when possible.
Annotated list of publications and disseminated works that are specifically related to teaching. Include any public dissemination of teaching materials and methods as well as professional presentations on pedagogy and classroom engagement within their discipline. Research products unrelated to teaching should not be submitted. Do not include copies of the publications.
Describe both the breadth of student mentoring and any unusual or particularly time- intensive activities, including evidence of teaching beyond the traditional classroom.
The dossier may include up to three letters from students (unsolicited or solicited) and three from external sources or community members. These letters should be no more than two pages in length.
While the committee appreciates the opinions of solicited letters, unsolicited letters are often weighed more heavily. For the sake of this dossier, external denotes outside of the program, department, campus, or system, based on the applicant’s work.
Any faculty member who presents a teaching portfolio for consideration for the IU South Bend Distinguished Teaching Award and is not selected as a recipient may elect to resubmit the portfolio for consideration the year immediately following the initial submission without the need for re-nomination. If the nominee elects to resubmit the portfolio, he or she will include additional documentation for the second year of consideration. After being considered for two successive years, the faculty member must be re-nominated to be considered again.
