Outstanding Professor Selection ProcessOverview
The purpose of the Collin College Outstanding Professor Award is to recognize faculty members for exemplary teaching and outstanding service to the college, community, and profession. It serves the further purpose of selecting an outstanding faculty member to represent the college at the state level for the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor Award.
The Collin College Outstanding Professor Awardis intendedfor exceptional faculty membersin recognition of their teaching effectiveness and creativity in the classroom, their positive impact on students, their subject mastery and scholarship, and their service to the college and their community. In short, it aims to recognize the best of the best. The Outstanding Professor selection, an annual process that takes place in the spring semester, is overseenby the Council on Excellence.The Council ensures that a committee comprised of past Outstanding Professor finalists, award recipients, and current Council on Excellence representatives conducts the selection from nominations received from faculty, students, and administrators.
The Outstanding Professor Selection Committee (OPSC) will select five finalists, and the Outstanding Professor Finalists who agree to participate will automatically become nominees for the annual Collin Outstanding Professor Award.The selected Outstanding Professor Award recipient will become the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor nominee for Collin College.
Eligibility
Nominees for the Outstanding Professor Award must:
1. be a full-time faculty member.
2. be on a multi-year contract
3. not have been a finalist for the Outstanding Professor Award during the previous year.
Criteria for the Outstanding Professor Award:
Criteria relate to the following factors:
1. provides effective, innovative teaching
2. mentors and motivates students
3. receives consistent student recognition of excellence
5. actively pursues innovation and scholarship in the profession and professional development
6. providesleadership among colleagues
7. receivesformal recognition of excellence in academic field
8. participates in professional organizations and/or community
9. provides consistent outstanding service to the department and the college
10. provides support for Collin College core values and total educational mission
Nomination Process:
The CoE Chair will announce and explain the procedures for nominating someone for the Collin Outstanding Professor Award, will provide nomination forms and instructions, and will arrange for public notices (e.g., Cougar News, emails to faculty and students, CougarWeb) indicating how to submit completed forms.
Any Collin faculty member, academic administrator, or student may nominate an eligible professor. Faculty may not self-nominate. The nominations may be submitted to Student Life, VP/P offices and may also be submitted via e-mail to the CoE Chair; however, in order for nominations to be considered, the nomination cover page must be filled out and signed by the nominator.
All nominations should include the entire nomination form describing the nominee’s
• excellence in teaching and mentoring
• teaching responsibilities
• manifest of distinguished teaching
• innovations
• publications, special awards, etc.
The nomination form may be completed without consulting the candidate.
The Outstanding Professor Selection Committee:
The Outstanding Professor Selection Committee Co-Chairs will be appointed by the Chair of Council on Excellence. The selection committee will consist of finalists from previous years, past recipients of the award, past state Piper winners, and members of CoE. Committee membership will include 10-12 members reflecting various academic areas of the college.
The Outstanding Professor Selection of Finalists:
The CoE Chair will collect the nominations from Student Life and VP/P offices the Monday following the deadline. Within the next couple of days, the CoE Chair will deliver the nominations to the appropriate administrative assistant who will sign a confidentiality agreement before removing the identification information of the nominators to ensure fairness and anonymity and then scanning and labeling each nomination with the nominee’s name. The electronic copies will then be sorted for eligibility by the OPSC Co-chairs, and if there are any nominees serving on the committee, they will be given the option to recuse themselves, and if they choose to be considered for the award, the CoE Chair will replace them immediately.
Once the eligible nominees have been determined, the OPSC Co-chairs will post electronic copies on the I-drive for the committeeto begin the process ofselecting finalists for the Outstanding Professor Award.
Once the five finalists have been selected, the OPSC Co-chairswill notify theCoEChair as well as notifying the finalists to determine whether they agree to participate. Once the finalists have agreed to be included, the CoE Chair will then notify the Executive Vice President and the college President. The Executive Vice President and the CoE Chair will make arrangements to publicly announce the finalists at the following Board of Trustees meeting.
The Outstanding Professor Selection Process:
The OPSC meets roughly a week after the electronic nominations have been posted on the I-drive (depending upon when Spring Break falls that year), and all of the members of the committee then read through all of the nominations and select their top ten candidates individually. When the OPSC meets, the Co-chairs tabulate the results. If there are not five clear choices, the committee will discuss and debate to narrow the field to five finalists.
Finalists will then be evaluated in the following areas:
* bulleted 2-page CV with career highlights
* “Why I Teach” essay
* class visit (conducted in pairs)
* student evaluations