Award Criteria and FAQ

The award was established to recognize faculty who have contributed significantly to the intellectual life of the University through their teaching. Recipients of the award will have demonstrated their excellence as educators over a sustained period of time.

Criteria include the following:

• A record of outstanding teaching effectiveness both within and outside the classroom
  
  
• The ability to inspire, promote, and sustain the intellectual development of students
  
  
• A pedagogical approach that is innovative (new approaches using current or new models of teaching), intellectually rigorous, creative, and engaging
  
  
• Demonstrated scholarly/professional contributions and their integration into the classroom that foster critical thinking and challenge students to independent inquiry
  
  
• Advising/mentoring of undergraduate or graduate students or doctoral and clinical supervision-interactions outside of the classroom and the quality of such interactions
  
  
• Contribution to developing or enhancing curricula in the field
  
  
• Length of service
  
  
• Internal school awards/honors received

Only full-time faculty members with at least ten years of service at NYU who currently hold one of the following titles are eligible:

• Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor
  
  
• Clinical Professor, Clinical Associate Professor, Clinical Assistant Professor
  
  
• Research Professor, Research Associate Professor, Research Assistant Professor
  
  
• Master Teacher, Teacher
  
  
• Arts Professor, Arts Associate Professor, Arts Assistant Professor

Please note that while current adjuncts are not eligible for consideration, current full-time faculty may count past adjunct service towards the ten year eligibility requirement.

Past winners of the award may not be renonminated. For a list of past award recipients, click here.

Students, faculty, and alumni should submit nominations to the appropriate School Representative (please see the home page for this year's nomination deadline. Each school, according to its own procedures, may then select one candidate from among its nominees to forward to the All-University Selection Committee, which makes the final selections.

The School Representatives disburse information about the award to their school and collect nominations submitted by faculty, students, and alumni. Once the school's nominee has been chosen, the School Representative also assists in preparing the nomination packet for the All-University Committee and delivering it to the Office of Faculty Resources.

The process of selecting a school's nominee is left up to the individual school. Generally, each school constitutes a representative nominating committee that comprises faculty, students, school alumni, and a representative of the dean's office. It is the task of each school committee to establish criteria that reflect the particular character of what is defined as excellent teaching in that school and to establish procedures for receiving nominations and supporting information. Each school committee may nominate one candidate to forward to the All-University Selection Committee.

A special University committee made up of faculty, students, alumni, and administrators convenes each spring to review the nominees submitted by each school and make final recommendations for the Distinguished Teaching Award. In making its selection, the committee wishes to recognize the diversity of the University and the diverse forms that teaching may take in the different schools of the University.

A list of the current Selection Committee members may be found here.