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Part-Time Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award

All faculty members who taught less than full-time in the preceding calendar year are eligible to apply for the Part-Time Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award.  One award may be bestowed in each academic college annually.  The award will consist of a certificate and a monetary award of $1,000. Applications are due by March 25, 2024 at 5PM.

PART-TIME FACULTY EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING AWARD

PURPOSE

As a means to further the University’s efforts to recognize outstanding faculty and to acknowledge the many and important contributions of the nontenure line faculty, this policy establishes an awards program for recognizing part-time faculty excellence in teaching and outlines a process for selecting and making these awards. This award is intended to recognize instructors who have not historically been eligible for university teaching awards.

POLICY

One Part-Time Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award may be given per academic college annually. Each award will consist of a certificate signed by the college dean and a monetary award of $1,000. All faculty members teaching 75% or less FTE in both long semesters of the preceding calendar year, have taught throughout the entire course, and are not employed as an administrator or staff member full time are eligible for these awards, exclusive of those faculty members who have received this award in the preceding three years.

PROCEDURE

Each college review committee will be composed of the Nontenure Line Faculty Committee (NLFC) members for the college; therefore, all departments within the college will have representation. The longest serving college NLFC member will serve as chair of the college selection committee.

Should an NLFC member apply for this award, a nontenure line faculty member from that department will be designated by the NLFC to serve on the selection committee.

Application Process

  1. Applications will be solicited via a faculty-wide email sent by the Faculty Senate.
  2. The deadline to submit applications for the previous calendar year to the Faculty Senate email is early in April. The Faculty Senate’s administrative assistant will upload supporting documentation to the Canvas Part-time Teaching Award project site for review by the applicant’s college selection committee.
  3. Applicants are instructed to follow the guidelines listed below, and to address the Excellence in Part-time Teaching Award rubric in the application form and documentation. The college selection committee will use this rubric to review submissions.

Guidelines

  1. Each applicant must submit supporting documents as a single pdf to the Faculty Senate email account and by doing so, will grant approval to the NLFC to review his or her application materials. The Faculty Senate will notify chairs and deans of the faculty in their units who have applied for the award.
  2. The application materials to be submitted are:
  • Completed Application Form
  • Narrative response statement (300-word maximum).  Describe:
  1. An innovative teaching strategy you have used or created.
  2. A teaching challenge and how you solved it.
  • Texas State CV highlighting teaching development (e.g. teaching workshops, continuing education, curriculum development projects) and accomplishments (e.g. teaching awards, honors)
  • Three written student comments that address teaching effectiveness (e.g. letters, comments from evaluations, emails)
  • One written letter of support from a faculty member in your department
  1. Applications that do not include the documentation outlined above or are not submitted by the specified deadlines will not be considered. Ranking of applicants will be based on information in the application materials as applied to the checklist.

Committee Recommendations

Upon completion of the college committees’ reviews, the NLFC Chair will submit the committee’s recommendations to the Faculty Senate for endorsement. Once approved, the NLFC Chair will notify the award recipients and their Chair/Director and College Dean.

Deans’ Offices Responsibilities

The Deans will send the award announcement letters to recipients and present certificates, or other suitable awards, at the fall college convocation meetings.