The awards process is coordinated through the Office of the President. Nominators are encouraged to consult with the Office of the President about candidate eligibility prior to preparing a nomination; questions about dossier preparation are welcome at any time.
The deadline for nominations was 12 p.m., Monday, November 4, 2024.
The number of nominations SUNY Oneonta may submit is determined annually by SUNY.
General Restrictions on Eligibility
The following are special conditions, applicable to all programs that limit eligibility:
- faculty holding Distinguished Faculty Rank – Distinguished Librarian, Distinguished Professor, Distinguished Service Professor, or Distinguished Teaching Professor – may not be nominated for another Distinguished Faculty Rank designation;
- faculty holding qualified academic appointments (as defined in Board of Trustees policies: individuals holding titles of academic rank that are preceded by the designation …“visiting” or other similar designations) may not be nominated;
- faculty holding a concurrent administrative appointment above the level of department chair for which they receive extra compensation are ineligible for the DSP;
- faculty who have retired or faculty serving in part-time capacities are ineligible; and
- posthumous nominations are not permissible.
Specific Eligibility
Academic Rank – Candidates must have attained the rank of full professor.
Length of Service – Candidates must have held the rank of full Professor for at least five years and must have at least three years of full-time service at the nominating institution.
Nominations must be drawn from faculty members who have regularly carried a full-time teaching load, both in terms of the number of semester hours taught and the number of students served, as defined by the campus for full-time faculty. The definition of a full-time teaching load varies from campus to campus, but each campus should be satisfied that there could be no question that its nominee meets this criterion.
Department chairpersons/directors or equivalent may be nominated for the Distinguished Teaching Professorship contingent upon the individual's carrying the campus-defined full-time teaching load for all persons performing such administrative responsibilities (e.g., if a campus defines 15 hours as a full-time teaching load for full-time faculty and 12 hours as a full-time teaching load for department chairs, then an individual serving as a department chair teaching the 12 hours and meeting the other eligibility requirements would be eligible for nomination). Administrators with less than a campus-defined teaching load (e.g., dean, associate dean) are ineligible.
Criteria for Selection
The primary criterion for appointment to the rank is skill in teaching, with evidence that the nominee’s work has elevated the standards of colleagues at their institution or the field in general. Consideration shall also be given to mastery of subject matter, sound scholarship, service to the University and the broader community, and to continuing growth. The following criteria are to be used in the selection of persons to be nominated for the Distinguished Teaching Professorship:
- Teaching Techniques and Representative Materials – There must be positive evidence that the candidate performs superbly in the classroom. The nominee must maintain a flexible instructional policy that adapts readily to student needs, interests, and problems. Mastery of teaching techniques must be demonstrated and substantiated. Consideration should be given to the number of substantially different courses taught, the number of students per course, and the teaching techniques employed in the various courses.
When available, student evaluations (in the form of student questionnaires administered and compiled by persons other than the nominee) presented for several different courses over a period of several recent years may provide the local selection committee with a clear idea of the nominee's impact on students.
- Scholarship and Professional Growth – The candidate must be a teacher/scholar who keeps abreast of and makes significant contributions in his or her own field and uses the relevant contemporary data from that field and related disciplines in teaching. Examples of evidence in this category may include publications or artistic productions, grant awards, and presentations at symposia in his or her disciplines.
- Student Services – In relating to students, the candidate must be generous with personal time, easily accessible, and must demonstrate a continual concern with the intellectual growth of individual students. For this category, consideration should be given to the accessibility of the nominee to students outside of class (e.g., office hours, conferences, special meetings, the nominee's responsibility in terms of student advisement, and the nominee's teaching-related services to students).
Academic Standards/Requirements and Evaluations of Student Performance – The candidate must set high standards for students and help them attain academic excellence. Quantity and quality of work that is more than average for the subject must be required of the student. The candidate must actively work with students to help them improve their scholarly or artistic performance. The local selection committee should consider the quality, quantity, and difficulty of course-related work. Evidence of academic standards and requirements may be assessed by the accomplishments of students, including placement and achievement level.
The candidate's evaluation of students' work must be strongly supported by evidence. Expert teachers enable students to achieve high levels of scholarship. Consequently, it is possible that the candidate's marking record may be somewhat above the average of colleagues. There must be evidence that the candidate does not hesitate to give low evaluations to students who do poorly. Grading practices should be evaluated by the local committee. In particular, grade distribution for all courses in recent academic years should be reviewed and any seemingly unusual grading patterns explained.
In order to clarify the difference between the Distinguished Professorship and the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the files for candidates must provide evidence that they are or have been involved for some substantial period of time in developing or promoting excellence in teaching through pedagogical methods and/or principles or in substantive educational enhancement either in their disciplines or to meet community needs on a regional, national, or international level.
Local Guidelines: How to Prepare a Nomination
Nominators' Responsibilities
It is the responsibility of the nominator(s) to complete and submit all required and allowable support file data. This includes the electronic submission of the following documents to awards@oneonta.edu by noon on Monday, November 4, 2024:
- One complete PDF dossier containing all required materials
- One MS Word document of the maximum five-page summary
- One MS Word document of the nominee’s curriculum vitae
SUNY will announce winners in April or May; however, due to timing factors, only award recipients and their campuses will be notified.
Nominator Dossier Preparation
The dossier will contain all required materials in the sequence below, with a table of contents. Incomplete nominations will automatically be disqualified.
- The Nomination Abstract - Please provide a brief one-paragraph abstract of 150 to 180 words. This abstract should provide a clear, thematic picture that describes the candidate’s main accomplishments. It should highlight why the candidate has been nominated and may be taken from other parts of the nomination package. If the candidate is an awardee, this abstract may be used for press releases or testimonials.
- The Summary Presentation (five-page summary) should include direct quotes from the letters of support and must speak specifically to each of the criteria for selection in the SUNY guidelines as follows:
Criteria for Selection for Distinguished Teaching Professorship:
The primary criterion for appointment to the rank is skill in teaching, with evidence that the nominee’s work has elevated the standards of colleagues at their institution or the field in general. Consideration shall also be given to mastery of subject matter, sound scholarship, service to the University and the broader community, and to continuing growth. The following criteria are to be used in the selection of persons to be nominated for the Distinguished Teaching Professorship:
- Teaching Techniques and Representative Materials – There must be positive evidence that the candidate performs superbly in the classroom. The nominee must maintain a flexible instructional policy that adapts readily to student needs, interests, and problems. Mastery of teaching techniques must be demonstrated and substantiated. Consideration should be given to the number of substantially different courses taught, the number of students per course, and the teaching techniques employed in the various courses. When available, student evaluations (in the form of student questionnaires administered and compiled by persons other than the nominee) presented for several different courses over a period of several recent years may provide the local selection committee with a clear idea of the nominee's impact on students.
- Scholarship and Professional Growth – The candidate must be a teacher/scholar who keeps abreast of and makes significant contributions in his or her own field and uses the relevant contemporary data from that field and related disciplines in teaching. Examples of evidence in this category may include publications or artistic productions, grant awards, and presentations at symposia in his or her disciplines.
- Student Services – In relating to students, the candidate must be generous with personal time, easily accessible, and must demonstrate a continual concern with the intellectual growth of individual students. For this category, consideration should be given to the accessibility of the nominee to students outside of class (e.g., office hours, conferences, special meetings, the nominee's responsibility in terms of student advisement, and the nominee's teaching-related services to students).
- Academic Standards/Requirements and Evaluations of Student Performance – The candidate must set high standards for students and help them attain academic excellence. Quantity and quality of work that is more than average for the subject must be required of the student. The candidate must actively work with students to help them improve their scholarly or artistic performance. The local selection committee should consider the quality, quantity, and difficulty of course-related work. Evidence of academic standards and requirements may be assessed by the accomplishments of students, including placement and achievement level.
- The candidate's evaluation of students' work must be strongly supported by evidence. Expert teachers enable students to achieve high levels of scholarship. Consequently, it is possible that the candidate's marking record may be somewhat above the average of colleagues. There must be evidence that the candidate does not hesitate to give low evaluations to students who do poorly. Grading practices should be evaluated by the local committee. In particular, grade distribution for all courses in recent academic years should be reviewed and any seemingly unusual grading patterns explained.
- In order to clarify the difference between the Distinguished Professorship and the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the files for candidates must provide evidence that they are or have been involved for some substantial period of time in developing or promoting excellence in teaching through pedagogical methods and/or principles or in substantive educational enhancement either in their disciplines or to meet community needs on a regional, national, or international level.
The format of the Summary Presentation (five-page summary) is significant because the document, if approved by the local selection committee, will be forwarded to SUNY System Administration. Formatting requirements include:- The heading must indicate the name, rank and college of the nominee and the nominator as follows:
Name, Rank, SUNY Oneonta, nominated for the Distinguished Teaching Professorship by Name, Title, SUNY Oneonta.
- The final paragraph must repeat the nomination and summarize its salient points.
- Avoid the use of first person.
- Single-space with at least 11 point font size and set margins to at least 1".
- Please do not use acronyms or language which will not be understood by external reviewers.
- Curriculum Vitae – An up-to-date and moderately comprehensive CV that should have separate sections for educational background, academic/visiting appointments, honors and awards received, publications, external funding, invited/keynote presentations, other presentations, teaching accomplishments (including lists of graduate dissertations, theses and research directed and other mentoring), and service contributions to the University, the community, and the profession (work with learned societies, editorial boards, conferences organized, and other relevant activities). Entries for awards should indicate the significance of each item. Specific data must include the date of the last update, the candidate’s department, the date of appointment to the SUNY system, highest rank attained and date of appointment to that rank.
- Internal Letters of Recommendation must provide strong evidence of sustained excellence in teaching. At least five, but no more than eight, recent (ideally within one year) internal letters are needed to validate the stature of the candidate proposed for appointment. At least two of these letters should be from current students attesting to the candidate’s teaching ability, dedication and service to students. Letters from the Provost and candidate’s Dean are required and must provide detailed information and the specific rationale – preferably in laymen’s terms – for the candidate’s nomination and justification for appointment. Letters from those holding Distinguished rank are encouraged. Authors of internal letters of recommendation should not also be listed as nominators for the dossier.
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External Letters of Recommendation must provide strong evidence of sustained excellence in teaching. At least five but no more than eight, recent (ideally within one year) external letters are needed to validate the stature of the candidate proposed for appointment. Each external letter should be accompanied by a one- to five-page detailed description of the author’s stature sufficient to provide review panelists a context for the recommendation submitted. Letters must be from colleagues with the appropriate rank at the appropriate institutions.
In these letters, the recommenders should: comment briefly about their relationship to the candidate, corroborate the candidate’s merit for appointment, describe the candidate’s teaching techniques, catalog the candidate’s most important achievements, speak to the influence and impact of the candidate’s contribution to teaching in general or in the discipline, and explain the significance of the candidate’s awards and honors. One of these letters should be from a former student of the candidate attesting to the candidate’s teaching ability, dedication and service to students.
- Course evaluations (numerical summaries only) and grade distributions will be forwarded to SUNY System Administration.
- Numerical summaries of Student Course Survey quantitative results from the last two years, ideally with at least 50% response rate; if possible, include comparisons with department and school/university aggregate data.
- Grade distribution for all courses taught for the last two years, as compared to departmental or college distribution.
- Documentation supporting teaching excellence will be used only for the on-campus evaluation. It must contain the following evidence to support the statements in the five-page summary:
- A complete list of courses taught (not including sections) during the candidate’s career at SUNY Oneonta (if not listed in CV).
- A list of three years of enrollments per section.
- Syllabi and other materials demonstrating use of contemporary instructional strategies, from the last two years.
- Free responses from the Student Course Survey for the last two years, along with an optional explanation of the context.
- If applicable, include a summary of how scholarship and/or service activities are related to the nominee’s teaching.
Last updated 9/27/2024
Incomplete nominations will automatically be disqualified.