Materials Required for Nomination

Materials to be submitted as part of nomination for the
Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence
and the
Charles Deering McCormick University Distinguished Lectureship/Clinical Professorship

1. A letter of nomination (no more than three pages) from either the school dean or the departmental chair.  This letter is a central part of the dossier that will be considered by the Screening Committee; and the materials listed below (in numbers 2-5) should be seen as providing evidence supporting the assertions made in the letter.
   • The letter should begin with a comprehensive description of the nominee's activities as a teacher -- including the kinds of classes taught, classroom performance, advising responsibilities, curricular innovation or research on teaching undertaken, etc.  The letter should offer an overview and summary of the material provided in support of the nomination -- e.g., CTEC results (summarizing the large amount of data presented there, pointing out strengths and weaknesses and highlighting trends in those results, and perhaps comparing the nominee’s CTEC results with the results of other faculty teaching similar courses); syllabi (pointing out the ways in which they have evolved and/or are innovative); teaching log (highlighting the variety of courses taught or the foci of the nominee's teaching -- large courses for non-majors, small upper-level seminars, etc.).
   • The letter should moreover make the case that the nominee has had an extraordinary influence on students -- as, for example, on their ability to think critically, to master difficult concepts and material, to create, to expand their curiosities, to perform, or to develop independent insights. As appropriate, the letter should also discuss the nominee's influence beyond the classroom or laboratory or studio --in advising, for example, as a collaborator with or mentor of other faculty, or indirectly through the development of important and influential educational innovations.
2. Current CV of nominee.
3. A statement of no more than three pages from the nominee setting forth his or her goals as a teacher and assessment of success in meeting those goals.
   • The statement should address the nominee's objectives for student learning: the intellectual and/or creative abilities, habits, insights, and attitudes that the nominee has endeavored to instill in his or her students and the evidence that success has been achieved. The statement should be both abstract (in setting forth general pedagogical principles) and concrete (in describing strategies employed to implement those principles). As appropriate, the statement should discuss the nominee’s work with and effect on faculty colleagues.
4. 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. (Please do not submit material more than three years old.)
   • Nominees are invited to attach to those materials brief notes highlighting points of special interest -- e.g., ways in which syllabi reflect evolution of course design over a number of years and the reasons for the evolution; surmises as to the reasons for especially favorable or unfavorable student comments; etc.  In addition, nominees are encouraged to submit a representative sample of handouts or other teaching materials (along with explanatory cover notes, if desired) generally amounting to no more than 15 pages.
5. 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. (Since the awards focus on undergraduate teaching, letters from graduate students are not to be sought.)
   • Students writing such letters should be urged to be as specific as possible about the ways in which the nominee has distinguished him- or herself as a teacher, adviser, etc.

Steven Cole
s-cole@northwestern.edu
(847) 467-0578