As a faculty member, being nominated for and receiving a teaching award can be career-altering, but serving on a teaching awards committee provides its own benefits. In a new article for the journal Transformative Dialogues, two members of OCUFA’s Teaching and Academic Librarianship Awards committee summarize their experiences as committee members.
Judy Bornais and Andrea Buchholz reflect on every step of the process, including the review of nomination dossiers, the selection meeting, preparing citations and feedback letters, and the awards ceremony. They describe how their committee work has encouraged them to view their teaching through an “autobiographical lens”. It has improved their understanding of excellence in teaching, the student learning process, and how to incorporate this new understanding into their own approaches to teaching. As they state in their article, “serving on a university teaching awards committee has encouraged us to evolve, both professionally and personally.”
This article originally appeared in OCUFA Report. To receive stories like this every week, please subscribe.