Indiana University Kokomo Claude Rich Excellence in Teaching Award
This award commemorates the well-known Howard County native, Claude Rich, who retired from Indiana University in 1976 after 44 years of remarkable service.
Eligibility
The purpose of the award is to promote excellence in teaching at Indiana University Kokomo. Only Indiana University full time faculty and librarians at Indiana University Kokomo are eligible for nomination for the Claude Rich Excellence in Teaching Award. Normally an individual will have been teaching at IU Kokomo for at least three years. An individual may win the award only once at each rank. There are no other restrictions on a nominee's eligibility. Two awards may be bestowed annually, one for Clinical Assistant Professors, Assistant Professors, and Lecturers and one for Clinical Professors, Professors, Teaching Professors, Clinical Associate Professors, Associate Professors, and Senior Lecturers.
Selection Committee
The recipients of the Claude Rich Excellence in Teaching Award are chosen by the Teaching Awards Committee.
Award Criteria
Applicants must be judged in terms of their accomplishments as teachers. Evidence concerning an applicant’s excellence in research, in administrative duties, or in public service is relevant only so far as the information helps explain the candidate's success as a teacher. Similarly, statements concerning a applicant’s personality or popularity are significant only when they help demonstrate or define the precise nature of the individual's excellence in teaching. The criteria for the excellence in teaching award are as follows:
- Effective Teaching: Excellent teachers are effective. Applicants should provide evidence of effective instruction. This evidence should include multiple measures that their students are learning. This might include assessment results, peer reviews, and course evaluations.
- Curricular Development: Excellent teachers expand and update the curriculum of their programs. Applicants should provide evidence in areas such as creating new courses, updating the curriculum of existing courses, or creating new teaching materials. It is important to not merely list such courses; applicants should provide a description of course development and improvement, explaining the process employed.
- Pedagogical Innovation: Excellent teachers improve their instructional techniques. Applicants should provide evidence of improving the pedagogy of their courses. The examples should be reflective, describing the rationale for the change(s) in a course and evidence of the results of attempted improvements.
- Leadership: Excellent teachers work to improve the teaching of others. Applicants should describe how they have helped improve the teaching of other faculty. This can include conducting workshops, peer reviews, SoTL presentations, SoTL publications, and mentoring of faculty.
Note, faculty are encouraged to remember that they need not limit the application to their own classrooms. For example, performing assessment for a whole degree program could be used as evidence. In addition, supervising undergraduate research projects and mentoring students and colleagues may serve as evidence of excellence in teaching.
Application Process
Applications are due October 15th. Faculty apply for the award by submitting their application to the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Julie Saam, via email jsaam@iuk.edu. Applications must be submitted as a PDF document. Applicants are encouraged to aid navigation of the document by using bookmarks and internal links within the PDF. The application may include material from the period of time that the faculty member has been in their current rank. Significant supporting evidence from the interval between application and promotion to the current rank may also be considered.
The application will have the following items, in the following order:
- Reflective Statement: The reflective statement will consist of up to 15 single-spaced pages (including tables, charts, and figures) that explicitly address how the application meets the above criteria.
- Up-to-Date CV, including list of courses taught
- Supporting Materials: The dossier may also include supporting materials. These are to be materials that are referred to in the reflective statement. They should be organized in the order they are first referenced in the document. Ideally, they should be linked within the document or bookmarked in such a fashion that a reader can easily locate them. Note, applicants shall limit the supporting materials to items that are explicitly referenced within the reflective statement. In addition, while unsolicited letters from students can be included (if they are referenced in the reflective statement), solicited letters from students will not be read or considered as evidence by the committee.
- Teaching Evaluations: The dossier should include a summary of the candidate’s student course evaluations for the last three years, and these should be comprehensive rather than selected. Although the committee wishes to see all qualitative comments, it only wants a summary of the quantitative scores. This summary should include an analysis of the results as well as an explanation of how the evaluations were administered. In addition, candidates may provide summary tables that show course-evaluation scores over a longer period of time; they may also provide reflections on how they utilize these evaluations in their own professional growth. (While the award covers activities from the time in current rank, only the last three years of evaluations need be included).
Committee Responsibilities
The selection committee will review applications and select a winner for each category. After winners are selected, the committee chairperson shall send a letter, by December 1st, to the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs making a recommendation of who shall win the award for each category. The letter shall discuss each applicant’s case. If the committee feels that no candidate warrants receiving this award it will so inform the Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. The committee chairperson will send a letter to each candidate who was not selected with suggestions for how their application might be improved. The Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs is responsible for notifying the winner(s).
The committee is also charged to review the Claude Rich Excellence in Teaching Award guidelines and propose revisions to the Faculty Senate for approval. Before making changes, the committee must check with the IUK Office for University Advancement to ensure that any changes still match donor intent.
Approved by the IU Kokomo Faculty Senate, September 16, 1981
Revisions approved by the IU Kokomo Faculty Senate, November 25, 2002, and October 9, 2017