Distinguished Teaching Award

Purpose of the Distinguished Teaching Award

The Distinguished Teaching Award (DTA) recognizes outstanding instruction by faculty and librarians at ��ֱ��, at the undergraduate and/or graduate level and across multiple modalities of instruction. The award will be given annually to at least one full-time and one part-time instructor.

The DTA recognizes faculty and librarians at Salem State whose teaching reflects these four values, which reflect our institutional mission and commitment to students:

Distinguished teachers aid learning and engagement.
Distinguished teachers create a supportive, inclusive, and equitable learning environment.
Distinguished teachers care for, inspire, transform, and empower students, altering the trajectory of their present and future lives.
Distinguished teachers demonstrate lifelong learning in content and pedagogy.

Eligibility Requirements

Faculty members and librarians must be nominated through the Student Nomination Process in the Fall of the award year.
Nominees must complete the DTA application by the annual deadline. Nominees must be teaching during the Spring semester of the award year and willing to have a teaching visit in a class or instructional session from DTA committee members.
The DTA may not be awarded to a faculty member or librarian who has received the award. (A person may be awarded a second time for a different “category,” such as PT and now FT.) Current members of the DTA committee are not eligible for the award.

Annual Proposed Timeline

Student Nominations Distributed - Mid October
Student Nominations Return Deadline - Early November
Notification of DTA Nominees - Early December
DTA Applications- Due before Spring classes start
DTA Committee applicant review and finalist selection - Early February
DTA Finalist Teaching Visits - Due before Spring Break/advising period
DTA Committee selection of awardees - Mid-April
DTA Campus Celebration - Early May
Announcement of awardees - Center for Teaching Innovation May Symposium

Nomination Process

Student Nominations

Students submit nominations of faculty and librarians via the DTA Student Nomination Form. The survey includes three questions that are rooted in the DTA values. Contact a committee member for a nomination form.

Nominee Notification

Any faculty member/librarian who was nominated by a student will receive a congratulatory notification from the DTA Committee via email and an invitation to submit their full application for the award by the annual deadline, along with eligibility criteria.

Nominee Application

Faculty nominees who choose to apply will complete the DTA Application Form. The application form requires responses (reflection and artifact) for each of the four DTA value statements.

Selection Process

Finalist Selection Criteria

The DTA Committee will select finalists from the applicant pool using a standard process:

DTA Committee members will independently review the nominee application forms using the Rubric for Artifacts and Written Statements. The rubric will be used to review the artifact reflections and student nomination support and generate a score for each applicant. This rubric is confidential for internal DTA use only and will not be shared in any form outside of the DTA committee.
DTA Committee members will convene to discuss the rubric scores and select a group of finalists.
Finalists will be notified by the DTA Committee via email and informed of the next steps if they wish to proceed with the teaching visit process.
Applicants who are not chosen to be finalists will be notified by the DTA Committee separately via email.

Finalist Teaching Visit

Each finalist will receive a teaching visit from at least two DTA Committee members during the spring semester of the award year. DTA Committee members will coordinate with the finalists to visit one instructional period taught by the finalist. Finalists who would like their teaching visit to be online will coordinate with the DTA Committee members to arrange access to their Canvas site for the course that will be ‘visited’. DTA Committee members will use the Guide for DTA Teaching Visit to record notes relevant to demonstration of the DTA values.

Selection of Awardees

DTA Committee members will convene to discuss the visits and notes from the DTA finalist teaching visits. The DTA Committee will use teaching visit data, application form responses, and student nominations to select the awardees. Awardees will represent at least one part-time and one full-time instructor/librarian. The DTA Committee will send awardee names to Provost and the Provost will contact the awardees.

Celebration of All Nominees and Announcement of the Year's Awardees

Awardees announced to campus before Commencement
Potential Breakfast for Nominees and Awardees
Provide letters for nominees, certificates for finalists, and posters, honorarium, and trophy/medallion for awardees
Highlight Nominees, Finalists, and Awardees at Research Day and CTI Symposium