Teaching Award

Guidelines

Timeline

• Call for Nominations (Sep – Oct)
• File Preparation for candidates (Nov – Dec)
• Teaching Award Selection Committee (TASC) review and evaluate files (Jan – April)
• TASC interview final candidates (April)

Eligibility

Candidates for the President award must be full-time teachers at Prince Sultan University and must have completed a minimum of three consecutive years’ of teaching at PSU. Furthermore, applicants must be at the rank of Language instructor or higher.

Candidacy

Candidates are accepted by nomination or by applying on one’s behalf. To nominate someone, you must be from one of these constituencies:

• Full-time faculty member
• Student (either current or alumnae)
• Dean, Vice Dean, Director, or Chairperson
• Admin staff

Selection Criteria

TLC will send you an email addressing that you have been nominated to the President Distinguished Teaching Award and ask you to submit the Following documents:

• Your CV, outlining your educational career
• Two letters of recommendation of fellow faculty
• Syllabi from one course
• Course report of one course
• Two-page reflective essay on educational vision and teaching philosophy

After submitting your file TASC (Teaching Award Selection Committee)

Will review and evaluate each candidate's file. A score of 100 will be divided on:

• Candidates Files – Evaluation 40%
• Class Observation – Evaluation 30%
• Interviews – Evaluation 30%

By Dr. Orchida

Having to say a few words at that amazing moment when your name is announced as the winner of the Rector’s Distinguished Teaching Award is one of the challenges where even the most eloquent of orators would fall short of words. In my case, the most spontaneous, definitely unprepared response was to attribute this profound success to the profound support that I had enjoyed during my years at Prince Sultan University. I still affirm that to win such an award, all I did was to embrace our unique culture of continuous growth in a way that promotes an interdisciplinary view of higher education. Upon reflection, my role as a teacher converges with prospects of professional development, quality enhancement, extracurricular activities, and certainly research into unexpected domains. For this to happen, it is crucial to have a community of practice that nurtures development and progress through team spirit, genuine advice, and the comforting encouragement of true friendship. As for now, the real question becomes whether winning the award was the end of my achievements. The answer, in short, is that I am currently the Director of the University Level English Department (CW), teacher trainer/mentor for the Higher Education Teaching Certificate, leader of the Literary and Digital Studies in Humanities research group and continue to be nominated every year by students for the best teacher award. I am entirely committed to the community of practice within my department, college, and University, but the highlight of my career remains to be the first winner of The Rector’s Distinguished Teaching Award!

Conferral Of Award

President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and the PSU Awards for Outstanding Teaching shall be formally conferred at the annual year-end gathering of Prince Sultan University faculty and staff or the opening address at the beginning of the academic year.

Teaching Award updated guidelines: