President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching
This annual award recognizes the exemplary teaching of two faculty members.
The Elmhurst University Faculty Development Committee invites groups of students to nominate a faculty member for the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Nominations will be accepted from any group of three or more current students, either representing a student organization or honor society or choosing to nominate independently.
Any faculty member—full-time or part-time, teaching undergraduate or graduate courses in any program during any term—is eligible for nomination.
Nominations are completed in three steps:
- Declare your intent to nominate a faculty member. The announcement for the President’s Award is distributed late in the Fall Term. Within the announcement, there will be an active link to the online Intent to Nominate form that must be submitted to nominate a faculty member. The form asks for the name of the nominated faculty member and the names of at least three students nominating the faculty member. This allows us to get the nomination process started before receiving your nomination statement.
- Submit a completed nomination statement. To complete this, you will need to supply the name of the student liaison for your group and write a nomination statement of approximately 500–700 words. This statement should address the following two questions:
- How do you (the nominating students) know this professor and what are your primary reasons for nominating him or her?
- What is this professor’s greatest strength as a teacher? Give a specific example that illustrates this.
- Schedule an Interview. After the nomination process has started, we will contact your designated student liaison by email to set up a time for an in-person group interview. At least three, but no more than six students should attend the interview. Two members of the Faculty Development Committee will interview your group and the interview will be recorded on video for review by other members of the committee.
After all interviews are completed, the FDC will make the final selection of the two faculty members who will receive this year’s awards. At the Founders’ Faculty Dinner in May the names of all nominees will be announced, and the awards will be presented to the two recipients. Until then, the names of all nominees will be kept confidential.