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How can a tenure-track professor strategically pursue and win a teaching award to bolster their tenure application?

Specific scenario: A friend works in a university that emphasizes teaching. This is her 4th year and she has 18 months until tenure review. Her 3rd-year review came back and is concerning:

  • Research and service meet the minimum requirement

  • Teaching record is mixed:

    • Initial struggles with adjustment and over-innovation
    • Serious pandemic-related setback
    • Current excellent student reviews and peer observations

The committee noted that teaching is the weakest link in her tenure package. It is hard to say if the next 3 semesters of good student reviews can balance this, but a teaching award could potentially offset earlier inconsistencies.

Given this context, what are the best ways/steps for her to secure a teaching award in a short time frame?

Note: Her university has a teaching award just for assistant professors. In order to be considered, she has to be nominated by a faculty member, then by the chair, and then by the dean. The question is not about the procedure, but about how to be nominated in the first place.

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    Are the current "excellent" reviews in the same sort of course that got the "bad/worse" reviews? Or is there a pattern such as bad in intro courses but good in specialized, for-majors courses?
    – cag51
    Commented Sep 16 at 18:30
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    Don't go for the "best <xyz>" award, go for doing good <xyz>. You cannot control awards, but you have some control over <xyz>. If the current reviews are "excellent", find out what made them excellent. Also, if she goes from bad to excellent, that's a good sign (in any case, better than the other way around). Commented Sep 16 at 18:51
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    This isn't an answer, and I don't know the American tenure system, but... in what world is this a problematic review? Paraphrasing, it says that this person had a rough start to what might have been their first teaching job. Then they hit some troubles due to Covid (who didn't?). And now they are doing an excellent job, at least according to student feedback. Sounds like a good news story!
    – Flyto
    Commented Sep 16 at 20:55
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    @Timmy As far as I remember, the fix was to give the teaching award to people just after promotion to tenure (maybe even before the provost and the board of regents had officially approved the promotion). I don't know about the reason for the problem. An obvious guess is that people spent so much time and effort on teaching that teir research suffered. Commented Sep 16 at 22:06
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    Note that being a good teacher and winning a teaching award are not always the same thing. I’ve known some darn good teachers who deserved the recognition, but a few who did not. Way back when I taught a senior level course with a serious prerequisite. The prerequisite course was covered by either Prof X or Prof Y, both of whom had over 20 years of teaching experience. X won teaching awards based on student evaluations, Y got low to middling evals. Y’s students arrived to my class prepared, X’s didn’t. X focused on making the students happy, Y focused on their understanding of the material.
    – pjs
    Commented Sep 17 at 22:51

7 Answers 7

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How can a tenure-track professor strategically pursue and win a teaching award to bolster their tenure application?

She can't. This is a terrible plan that is 99% certain to fail. It is simply not possible to realistically aim for such a goal. Awards are meant to recognize the most exceptional teachers from among a (usually) fairly large field of candidates. Thus, the probability of winning one, even with talent and supreme effort, is too low for this event to be worth staking one's career success on.

Your friend can, and probably should, aim to be an excellent teacher, and to demonstrate that she is an excellent teacher. However, if she wants a reasonably high chance of success she should think of ways to demonstrate her excellence other than winning a teaching award.

At the same time, it is also reasonable to pursue the teaching award with a "low expectations mindset", where if it happens, your friend can reap some (well-deserved) career benefits, but such that if it does not happen, her career does not get entirely derailed. Thus, it would make sense for her to alert her department chair and other senior colleagues to the award, give them information about her excellent performance as a teacher, and hint (or even state outright) her desire to be nominated for the award. She can also work on keeping an up to date and web-accessible portfolio of teaching material, with compelling teaching materials, to make it easy for people to see how hard she works on her classes. She can also mentor students from underprivileged communities, etc; there are many other steps she can take that would increase her probability of winning a teaching award. Some of them are the same steps she would take to be an excellent teacher; others are more about "marketing" (a social media presence? a YouTube channel? The sky is the limit...), but can still potentially help make the dream of a teaching award a little less unlikely to come true.

Bottom line: it's good to be ambitious, but the ambition to win awards cannot be a career plan in and of itself. Most people, even most people who achieve tenure in highly-ranked departments (many of whom are excellent teachers), do not win teaching awards.

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    It's also a terrible plan because pursuing it might easily bring back the original issues with "over-innovation" (whatever that means, but if shooting for the stars originally led to bad outcomes I don't think shooting stars that are even farther away is going to be the answer).
    – xLeitix
    Commented Sep 17 at 14:31
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    I largely agree but...it might be worth a little digging to see how deep the award's applicant pool actually is. A local award with a convoluted application process for a small prize might not actually be that heavily contested.
    – Matt
    Commented Sep 18 at 20:51
  • @Matt sure, it's worth making reasonable efforts to pursue the award, including getting information about how competitive it is. And maybe for some awards the chance of winning is larger than for other awards, but it's still typically pretty small. Conversely, if there is an award where the chance is genuinely high (say, higher than 1 in 4) then I'd say that winning that award would be a pretty unimpressive achievement and may not actually provide the benefits for OP's friend that she's hoping to get out of it.
    – Dan Romik
    Commented Sep 19 at 16:51
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First, you have to actually be an excellent teacher. My suggested path to that is to focus on student learning, not lecturing, and to dedicate yourself to teaching every student who has a desire to learn. Big job. Hard job. It might take you (them?) some research to see how to do that and to practice it. It would also, to me, imply, a fairly robust and active classroom environment, provided that the scale permits it. Lots of questions to and from students, perhaps. To do it well, you need to be available to students even outside of class. Even online.

One way to gain the needed skill is to ask a colleague known to be an excellent teacher, even someone who previously won the award, if they would permit you to visit a few of their classes and then discuss techniques with them afterwards. Repeat as needed, perhaps with other colleagues.

Next, you have to be recognized as such. One way to do that is to get involved with organizations in your (their?) field that focuses on education. In CS that would be SIGCSE, for example. Contribute to their conferences and such.

Locally, once you (they?) have "mastered" the task, invite a faculty member or two, and the chair if necessary, to visit your classroom and give you feedback on your presentations and interactions. Can you bring out the "quiet" students, who sit in the back? Can you make it interesting without it being chaotic? How do you respond to questions, especially seemingly hostile or disruptive questions?

But to me, the biggest part is dedication to teaching every student. Not just the best, not the average; all.

No, I never won teacher of the year, even after I learned and practiced the above. I won some other rewards, but that one evaded me. And, confession, at the beginning of my teaching career I was overly pedantic, thinking that the perfect explanation would resonate with every student. It took me years to learn that students in my classroom weren't like me: driven to study this field without compromise. They have other goals.


A note on scale. It is unlikely at the sort of institution you describe, but if a "class" has 200 students, then an "active classroom might be impossible to manage. In such a case there are hopefully enough TAs (8 or so) to manage breakout sections for students to get questions answered. One technique in such a case is to make the rounds of those sessions, visiting each one occasionally as an observer and source of information as well. A visible presence is helpful.

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    Even if the OP's friend fails to get an award, all this is excellent advice about how to improve the teaching portion of their tenure portfolio. Commented Sep 16 at 18:16
  • “ invite a faculty member or two, and the chair if necessary, to visit your classroom” do professors really do this? Commented Sep 17 at 20:08
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    @AgnishomChattopadhyay, in the US, yes. In fact it is sometimes mandatory for new faculty who are not yet tenured. But the visitors should ideally be excellent teachers themselves and willing colleagues.
    – Buffy
    Commented Sep 17 at 20:12
  • @AgnishomChattopadhyay, It can be done in a lot of ways. Sometimes the visitors sit in the audience, just like the students do. However, they might also participate in the class somehow (e.g., give a mini-lecture on their specialty; judge student presentations, etc).
    – Matt
    Commented Sep 18 at 20:45
  • from what I have seen, most professors tend to be "busy" with their personal research or career goals and teaching is an afterthought. I can't imagine these people being very happy to attend a colleague's class and give feedback Commented Sep 19 at 14:39
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How can a tenure-track professor strategically pursue and win a teaching award to bolster their tenure application?

I am with Dan Romik - this is a terrible plan. For it to work your friend needs to get nominated and receive specifically the next teaching award, with the background that she is currently not perceived to be an outstanding teacher (otherwise she would not have that issue in the first place). Unless your department gives out teaching awards like participation trophies this isn't going to work and your friend needs a new plan.

Teaching awards, like most awards, are to a large degree based on perception. Your friend first needs to do something exceptional, but then she also needs to market what she is doing. That is to say, she needs to make sure that her colleagues know about what the exceptional thing is she is doing, what the pedagogical concept behind it is, how well it works, etc. This is not a quick fix, it's a multi-year project with highly uncertain outcome (she may do something cool and novel, and students might hate it, or her colleagues may find it pedagogically questionable, or somebody else might be doing something even cooler, etc.).

Specific scenario: A friend works in a university that emphasize on teaching. This is her 4th year and she has 18 months until tenure review. Her 3rd-year review came back and is concerning:

  • Research and service are okay
  • Teaching record is mixed: (Bad -> Worse -> Excellent)

The committee noted that teaching is the weakest link in her tenure package. It is hard to say if the next 3 semester of good student reviews can balance this. But a teaching award could potentially offset earlier inconsistencies.

[From a comment] She must meet the standard in all three categories: research, teaching, and service, with the first two being the most important. Ideally, she should exceed the standard in at least one of the three. However, her research performance is merely adequate. Therefore, her tenure case would likely be unsuccessful if evaluated today. Student feedback alone cannot resolve this issue. Something bigger has to happen.

First of, I share the surprise that her teaching track record is even perceived as an issue. If she now indeed has "excellent" evaluations, wouldn't 3 more semesters with excellent evaluations mean that her teaching track record is great (with or without award)? I would be concerned about an institution that holds initial struggles against a candidate if there is such a clear improvement.

Of course it's possible that the "excellent" above is more of a euphemism for "excellent in comparison to her earlier evaluations", and in absolute terms it's now more adequate than excellent. But even in this case, I suggest it's probably more realistic to improve the research or service track record in 18 months than to bank specifically on winning an award.

If the committee report specifically says she needs to win an award or her tenure case is going to be in trouble, I would honestly be concerned that this is not an earnest suggestion and more code for "she should look for other appointments". "We will need something exceptional to happen to positively evaluate this case 18 months from now" sounds like the thing you would say if you already kind of made up your mind that this tenure case isn't going to happen.

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I know of at least one full professor who moved from being frequently complained about to being the "best" teacher at his university and receiving a teaching prize by following the rules in the following paper:

Neath, I. (1996). How to Improve Your Teaching Evaluations without Improving Your Teaching. Psychological Reports, 78(3_suppl), 1363-1372. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1996.78.3c.1363

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    First tip: "Changing your gender, if female..." We may have some challenges in implementation.
    – Timmy
    Commented Sep 18 at 17:14
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I've gotten two real teaching awards in my career (and three silly ones.) I didn't seek them out, but I'll tell you how I happened to get them and your friend might contemplate this.

Every semester, I'd identify two or three struggling students and take special pains to help them succeed in my course. I'd catch them after class and engage them in small talk and also chat about their low grades and suggest that they come by my office. I'd show genuine interest in their progress and special problems. If there was something going on in their life, I'd let them vent to me. If they needed extra worksheets or link to a video, I'd find one.

The result is that there were a small number of students who were immensely grateful for my efforts. And a yet smaller number would run to the chairman and sing my praises. Then when it was time for teaching awards, my name was ringing in the chairman's ears. And things took their course. I got both awards because grateful students made noise.

My motivation was that I was bothered by not being able to save everyone, and I salved my conscience by at least saving someone. I wasn't out to get a teaching award. But it was nice to be recognized for going the extra mile.

Someone is going to complain that I wasn't being "fair." True, but fair isn't possible. I tried to pick struggling students whom I thought I could help. There are other types of struggling students that I don't know how to help. It's the dilemma of two people drowning and having only one life preserver to throw. To be fair, you'd let both drown. Or you could save one.

And someone is going to ask "what is a silly teaching award." Well, I worked at a school for a (short) while that handed out teaching awards like AOL CD's. Everyone got several. It's what you got instead of a raise.

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As @Buffy says: "First, you have to actually be an excellent teacher." - it is a bit like when students ask how to get a good mark - first you have to really understand the material - that is the easiest way.

Other than being an excellent teacher:

  • If you want a teaching award, I would advise teaching on small elective modules and avoid full-cohort compulsory modules. You will get better student feedback if the vast majority of the students actually want to be there from the outset. Teach smaller classes rather than large ones so that you can have more of a personal interaction with the students, rather than an impersonal ``performance''.

  • Be organised - make sure you are well prepared and have contingency plans in case things go wrong. If you are slapdash and disorganised you will be implicitly telling the students that you don't care about them. For instance at the moment I am uploading all of the teaching materials for the coming semester onto Blackboard and I am using timers so that e.g. gapped slides are automatically replaced with the filled in version immediately after the lecture (likewise solutions to lab exercises). That way I don't need to worry about this during the semester when I am busy and tired.

  • Be amusing/entertaining - I don't view this as part of being an excellent lecturer and not everybody is good at this. Your primary job is to transfer understanding of the subject matter, but if you can be entertaining it is a bonus as it will make it easier for the students to stay engaged.

  • Apply the golden rule - treat the students the way you would want a teacher to treat you if you were the student.

Never had a teaching award, but only reliably do two of the four ;o)

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    Being amusing/entertaining isn't part of being an excellent lecturer, but it is a big part of being recognized as an excellent lecturer. Which is what the OP is really interested in here. Commented Sep 17 at 17:18
  • @MarkMeckes exactly! Commented Sep 17 at 17:59
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Every University has quite a few really good teachers. Let's assume, for the moment, that you are one of them, maybe even the best of them.

So now, you're in competition with other people who might or should be considered for the same award. How do you float to the top??

My observation is that one fairly successful way to approach this is to have some champion recommend you for the award, and coordinate assembling a competitive package supporting the recommendation. This process starts by reading all the requirements for a specific award, and making sure there is a strong letter of support solicited from the right people who can attest to your excellence in every area described in the award. This can happen with or without the prospective recipient's knowledge or cooperation. For a teaching award, the letters would probably come from both colleagues (certainly any you've actually taught with) and students.

From what I've seen, the best chairs take this very seriously. My own chair was constantly looking for opportunities for recognition for every employee on the department rolls -- teachers, researchers, office staff, students, .... Making your group feel recognized and appreciated takes work.

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    Doesn't that mean that the award ends up being about something other than actually being a good teacher? Commented Sep 17 at 15:57
  • I wouldn't say that. The application package must certainly convince a selection committee that the potential awardee exhibits excellence in teaching. A coordinated application package just spells things out for the committee a little bit better than an uncoordinated package. Do a little reading about some of the lobbying that goes on behind the scenes for Nobel consideration. It's interesting stuff. Commented Sep 17 at 16:43
  • I think it is one of those is/ought things. Unfortunately evaluating the excellence of teaching is difficult/expensive, so often proxies are substituted, such as "how much will your colleagues vouch for you" - however human nature means that might not be a very good proxy, for instance you may be an excellent lecturer that doesn't get on well with their colleagues. Whatever the criteria, it will be gamed to some extent. There are plenty of people that deserved a Nobel prize that didn't get a look in because of lobbying (e.g. Jocelyn Bell Burnell). Commented Sep 17 at 18:04
  • What you say is true, but this seems to be the problem the teacher has - getting nominated. Commented Sep 17 at 18:07
  • @DikranMarsupial -- yes, exactly, which is why I described a process that centralizes efforts to nominate the people that should be nominated. Just a few days ago, at our faculty meeting, we even discussed taking this important role out of the Chair's hands and giving it to an Awards Committee (that doesn't exist yet). Commented Sep 17 at 19:11

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