Faculty Handbook

MSU Excellence-In-Teaching Citations for Graduate Teaching Assistants

IV. ACADEMIC HUMAN RESOURCES POLICIES (Cont.)

MSU Excellence-In-Teaching Citations are made to six graduate teaching assistants who have distinguished themselves by the care they have given and the skill they have shown in meeting their classroom responsibilities. The essential purpose of the citation is to bring University-wide recognition to the best of the graduate teaching assistants and by so doing to underline the qualitative contribution which they are making to the undergraduate program.

Nominations must be endorsed by the chairperson of the department/director of the school in which the teaching assistant's instructional responsibilities have been discharged.  When this is not the department/school in which the nominee is a candidate for a degree, the chairperson/director of the degree department/school must endorse the nomination.  In every instance the nomination must be accompanied by a letter of recommendation from the faculty member who has supervisory responsibility for the graduate teaching assistant.  Individual departments/schools will ordinarily make a single nomination each year, but the larger departments/schools may make as many as three.  "At large" nominations are also invited from an appropriate student organization.  All nominations are reviewed by a college screening committee, which may  forward the number of nominations as indicated in the table below.

To be nominated for an MSU Excellence-In-Teaching Citation, the teaching assistant must have held at least a quarter-time graduate teaching assistantship for a minimum of one semester at the time of nomination. In addition the nominee must have assumed a significant measure of responsibility for the conduct of undergraduate courses, whether in lecture, recitation or laboratory sections.  Special tutorial or seminar teaching will also be recognized by the citations committee.

Number of Teaching Assistants in College Maximum Number of Excellence-in-Teaching Nominations forwarded by the College
Less than 100 2
100-199 3
200-299 4
300-399 5
More than 399 7

Additional information can be found at http://www.ahr.msu.edu/all-university-awards.

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