About the Awards

Overview

Northwestern University offers three awards to recognize individual faculty members who have consistently demonstrated outstanding performance in classroom teaching, or who have developed significant innovations that have also influenced the methods and teaching effectiveness of other faculty. Collectively these awards celebrate excellence in undergraduate teaching and are known as the University Teaching Awards.

McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence Alumnae of Northwestern Teaching Professor McCormick Distinguished Lecturer or Clinical Professor

Awarded

 Annually Every three years Annually

Award Term (commences at the start of the next academic year)

 3 years 3 years 1 year

Award Amount:

  • To recipient*

 $7,000 $7,000 $7,000

  • For professional development**

 $3,000 $3,000 N/A

  • To home department***

 $3,000 $3,000 $1,000

Eligibility

 Regular tenured faculty Regular tenured faculty Regular, full time faculty member for at least five years.

Fellow of the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching

 YES YES YES
*funds are awarded as a salary supplement at the beginning of the award term
**to support the hiring of assistants, research expenses, attendance at professional meetings, and related activities
***to support activities that enhance undergraduate education, broadly construed

Nomination and Selection Process

Faculty members are nominated for a University Teaching Award by the deans of the schools or colleges in which they have their principal appointments. The nominations are reviewed by the University Teaching Awards Selection Committee, which is chaired by the Provost and made up of senior faculty members, university administrators, and a student representative. The selection committee submits its recommendations to the President. Appointments are made by the President, subject to the approval of the Board of Trustees. The appointments are made without regard to the school affiliation of the faculty member.

Current selection committee members may review the nominations on the secure committee site. NetID login is required.

Nomination materials should include the following:

  • A letter of nomination from the school dean or the departmental chair;
  • Current CV of nominee;
  • A statement from the nominee setting forth his or her goals as a teacher and assessment of success in meeting those goals;
  • A log of all courses taught during the past three years along with a) all student evaluations of those courses and b) all syllabi of those courses; and
  • Letters from no more than four currently enrolled undergraduate students and no more than two students who have graduated but who studied under the nominee as undergraduates describing the ways in which the nominee's teaching has significantly facilitated student learning.

For further details on these requirements, please refer to the List of Required Nomination Materials.

Nominations for the 2014 teaching awards are due by Monday, March 17, 2014. Schools should submit their nomination materials as a single PDF file to: teachingawards@northwestern.edu.

Contact

The University Teaching Awards are administered by the Office of the Provost. For questions on the process, contact Celina Flowers, Project Coordinator, at c-flowers@northwestern.edu.