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Call for Nominations for MAA Section Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics

Nominations for the [year] MAA Section Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics are now being accepted. The Section Selection Committee will determine the recipient of the award from those nominated. The awardee will be honored at the [year] meeting of the Section and will be widely recognized and acknowledged within the Section.

Anyone may make a nomination, but nominations from chairs or MAA liaisons in departments of mathematical sciences are especially solicited. For this reason, the MAA recommends that the call be sent to department chairs as well as any department liaisons. An outline of the nomination process can be found on the MAA website.

We urge you to submit a nomination for the MAA [name] Section Award if you have someone eligible and qualified in your department. Even if not selected this year, it is an honor for someone to have been nominated, and your candidate can likely be nominated again in a future year. Your department will receive recognition for its commitment to excellence in teaching, and the work done in preparing a nomination folder for your candidate is a tribute in itself.

Please discuss this memo with your colleagues and post it in a prominent place in your department.

Eligibility

 

  • College or university teachers who currently teach a mathematical science at least halftime during the academic year in a public or private college or university (from two-year college teaching through teaching at the Ph.D. level) in the United States or Canada. Those on approved leave (sabbatical or other) during the academic year in which they are nominated qualify if they fulfilled the requirements in the previous year.
  • More than seven years of experience in teaching a mathematical science.
  • Membership in the Mathematical Association of America.

 

Guidelines for Nomination

Nominees should

  • Be widely recognized as extraordinarily successful in their teaching.*
  • Have teaching effectiveness that can be documented.
  • Have had influence in their teaching beyond their own institution.**
  • Foster curiosity and generate excitement about mathematics in their students.

* "teaching" is to be interpreted in its broadest sense, not necessarily limited to classroom teaching. It may include activities such as preparing students for mathematical competitions at the college level such as the Putnam Prize Competition or the Mathematical Contest in Modeling, attracting students to become majors in a mathematical science or to become Ph.D. candidates, working with pre-service or inservice teachers, etc.

** "influence beyond..." can take many forms, including demonstrated lasting impact on alumni, influence on the profession through curricular revisions in college mathematics teaching with wide-ranging impact, influential publications or innovative books concerned with the teaching of college mathematics, etc.

Nominations must be submitted on the enclosed "Nomination Form." Please follow the instructions on that form precisely to assure uniformity in the selection process both at the section and national levels.

If a file on a Section awardee significantly exceeds the prescribed limits (as stated on page 2 of the Nomination Form), it will not be considered for a national award and will be returned to the Section.

Please send six copies of each nomination packet to

Professor A.B.C., Secretary
XYZ Section
Address

so as to be received no later than February 1, [year].

 

Nominations for someone from another Section should be sent to the Secretary of the nominee's Section.

We look forward to your participation in this exciting MAA venture of taking substantive action to honor extraordinarily successful teaching. We want to see such teaching recognized at all post-secondary school levels. We depend on you to help us identify those who merit such recognition.

At the national level, MAA recognizes outstanding teaching with the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics; each year at most three awards are given. At least one of the Award recipients must be a current Section nominee. This Section nominee may be the current recipient of the Section Award for Distinguished Teaching or a previous recipient of such an award from any Section. At most one of the Haimo Award recipients may be other than a current or past recipient of a Section Award for Distinguished Teaching. As you see, your nomination for a Section Award for Distinguished Teaching provides the opportunity for the person to be nominated for the national award.