Guidelines

The Academy of Distinguished Teachers at Southern Methodist University is an organization consisting of recipients of the Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor Award. It serves the academic community through the Center of Teaching Excellence by actively fostering superior teaching and learning through colloquia, workshops, lectures and mentoring. Four faculty are selected each spring to serve two years in the Academy, receiving $10,000 as part of the award. Detailed information and guidelines for membership are listed below.

Criteria for Nomination

Nominations should be in the form of an email addressed to the Center for Teaching Excellence (cte@smu.edu) with the names of the candidates. To be eligible, nominees must:

  • be full-time, tenured SMU faculty;

  • have been at SMU for at least five years;

  • be in residence for the two-year Academy membership;

  • show demonstrable excellence in teaching; and

  • show demonstrable commitment to student learning.

Nominators are encouraged to contact nominees in advance in order to confirm any of these criteria. Nomination alone is considered an honor; confidentiality ought not to be a concern. It is also entirely possible that some faculty could be nominated by more than one nominator.

Responsibilities and Commitments

  • As part of receiving the Altshuler Award, winners agree to the following commitments for the next two academic years:

  • Join the Review and Selection Committee for SMU’s Teaching Awards
  • Serve as an Advisory Board Member to the CTE and participate in two board meetings per year to discuss initiatives, programs, and aid the CTE in improving teaching and learning across the university.
  • Present at least once during your two-year tenure at CTE events, such as the Teaching Effectiveness Symposium, the Spring Kickoff, the Spring Pedagogical Institute, and/or other CTE events.

    • Dossiers

    Upon receipt of nomination, the Center will send the nominee a request for information to build his or her e-dossier in Interfolio. Items required for the nominee's e-dossier are:

    • CV
    • Name & Contact Information of Two (2) References: These MUST be other SMU Faculty that have observed the candidate's teaching in the past couple of years. Or, if they have not observed them yet, they must make arrangements to observe them before they submit a letter of support.
    • Course Evaluations: All course evaluations from the two previous semesters taught. These MUST be from EvaluationKit. All other evaluation types will not be accepted.
    • Teaching Philosophy: These should be concise and no longer than 2 pages.
    • Sample Syllabus
    • Additional Materials (OPTIONAL): These could be sample assignments, student letters, or anything the candidate thinks it might be relevant to support the nomination. A maximum of 4 total additional materials will be accepted.

    Completed dossiers from all nominees must be received by the date specified in the nomination notification letter. Current Altshuler award winners will review all information submitted and provide a list of finalists to the Provost. An announcement of the four selected awardees will be made at the Spring Faculty Meeting.