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Teaching Excellence Award

The English department calls for nominations for its Teaching Excellence Award each spring.

The application process is now closed.

Qualifications and Nominations

  • To be eligible, nominees must:
    • Be Professional Track Faculty (lecturers, senior lecturers, or principal lecturers).
    • Have taught in the English department for at least four consecutive regular semesters, inclusive of the current semester, with no minimum number of courses required. We do not count summer or winter courses.
    • Must not have won this award within the last five years.

To nominate someone for this award, please email englmeo@umd.edu.

To Apply

Nominees should submit the following materials:

  1. One-page statement of teaching philosophy that includes evidence of a teaching innovation
  2. Curriculum vitae
  3. Single representative syllabus that includes the sequence of assignments
  4. The designation of two individual courses from fall 2022, spring 2023 and/or fall 2023, selected by the nominee and identified by semester and section, for which student course evaluations will be retrieved. 
  5. Name and contact information for one reference who knows the nominee’s teaching abilities. We are not seeking letters of reference upfront, so please do not arrange to have them sent as part of the application process.

Application materials should be sent to englmeo@umd.edu by March 1, 2024.

Review of Applications

Submissions will be judged by a selection committee made up of a senior lecturer or a past award winner (after the first year), the associate chair, the vice-associate chair, the director of academic writing, and the director of professional writing.

Award recipients will be recognized with a $250 prize, and the awards will be announced in the English Department's end-of-year newsletter.

Past Winners

2024: Aysha Jawed, Alan Montroso, Daune O'Brien
                 Honorable Mention: Liam Daley

2023: Ben Baker

2022: Sarah Dammeyer, Melvette Melvin Davis

2021: Mark Forrester, Adam Lloyd

2020: Peter Grybauskas, Alysia Sawchyn

2019: Caroline Wilkins, Blake Wilder

2018: Ross Angelella, John Kim

2017: Catherine Bayly, Maggie Ray

2016: Doug Kern, Justin Lohr, Marybeth Shea

2015: Alexandra Calloway, Lyra Hilliard

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