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Teaching Initiative Award
(Pre-tenure faculty)

Portfolio Preparation Guidelines

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Overview

This award is for assistant professors who have shown considerable promise in teaching early in their academic careers. This category is restricted to faculty with at least two years of teaching on a full-time tenure track at Illinois State, but not more than five years of full-time, tenure track university-level teaching experience at Illinois State and elsewhere, combined. Part-time, non-tenure track and/or graduate assistant teaching experience for any length of time are not counted in the teaching record restrictions. The candidate's teaching performance at Illinois State University in a tenure-track position will be given the greatest weight. Up to five recipients will be selected, and the award includes a stipend.

Eligibility

To be eligible for a TIA nomination, an Illinois State University faculty member must:

1. Be a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member with at least two years of teaching on a full-time tenure track at Illinois State, but not more than five years of full-time, tenure track University-level teaching experience at Illinois State and elsewhere,
2. Receive support for their candidacy for the TIA from both department chair and college dean.

Note: Prior TIA recipients and current members of the University Teaching Committee are ineligible.

Timetable

• Last Monday of February – Program information and guidelines are posted to the CTLT Web site and memos outlining the time frame and the process are distributed to Chairs, Deans, and others by the University Teaching Committee.
• First Monday of May – Names of nominees due from departments to the Chair of the University Teaching Committee (Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology, Campus Box 6370). Departments should inform nominees of their nomination. This date is intended to provide nominees with sufficient time to prepare their application materials and as such is the preferred date for nomination submissions. In extraordinary circumstances, nominees may be submitted after this date with no penalty.
• Summer– The Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology provides nominees with portfolio development support through workshops and individualized consultation. See CTLT summer programming for details (www.teachtech.ilstu.edu).
• Third Monday of September – Nominees’ application materials due from departments to the offices of their respective college deans.
• Third Monday of October – Application materials of final college nominees are due from college offices to the chair of the University Teaching Committee (Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology, Campus Box 6370).

Nomination Procedures

The process begins at the department level, where departments select their nominees among eligible faculty who merit nomination. Nominees prepare their application portfolios for submission in Fall to their respective colleges, where they are evaluated with all other department-level nominees in the college. Colleges then forward their final nominees’ application materials to the University Teaching Committee for evaluation and selection of the awardees in late Fall. Details are explained below.

Department Level Process

Chairs should facilitate a nomination process in their departments and, using the Nomination Form, submit the names of final department nominees to the University Teaching Committee by the first Monday in May. Nominees should prepare their application portfolio, which chairs should forward to their college dean's office by the third Monday in September. When the college-level process is completed, department chairs will be informed of the college-level outcomes and then should inform all departmental nominees of those outcomes.

College Level Process

Each college dean, in conjunction with the College Council, shall evaluate departmental nominees based upon the selection criteria to select nominees to forward to the university level. (College Council members who are nominees for this award should not participate in the deliberations.) Colleges should forward the application materials of only those nominees who are judged as qualified for award consideration, accompanied by a nomination letter from the dean, by the third Monday in October.

There is no limit to the number of nominees each college may forward for consideration. The dean and/or college selection committee has the option of ranking nominees and/or providing written rationales, which should be forwarded as advisory information to the UTC. The dean and/or college selection committee should notify each departmental nominee’s department chair of the college-level outcome so chairs can notify their department’s nominees.

University Teaching Committee Process

The UTC shall select TIA recipients and notify each finalist of the outcome.