Nominations Due Friday, February 15, 2008, 4:00 pm

Catharine R. Stimpson, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science (GSAS), and Matthew S. Santirocco, Dean of the College of Arts and Science (CAS), are pleased to announce the Arts and Science Prize Teaching Fellowship. This competitive award for outstanding post-MacCracken doctoral students makes available a year of support by providing the opportunity to hold a significant and creative teaching assignment within a department in Arts and Science (A&S) that offers undergraduate courses.

The Prize Teaching Fellowship is an honor for the student that will enhance his or her teaching portfolio. Teaching two courses will be expected from the fellow for the 2008-09 academic year. Recipients will offer courses, whether existing ones or newly designed, that meet the real academic needs of the department and the undergraduate program. Each course will be one appropriate to the department, which takes advantage of the special expertise of the fellow. It should be a course with such wide interest that it can be expected to support a full enrollment.

Program Overview

A total of three awards will be given annually. Each includes an academic-year stipend of $22,000, a waiver of maintenance and matriculation fees, 100% coverage of the NYU comprehensive health insurance plan for an individual, and a $250 stipend for course development. The award is available to students from those GSAS departments and programs that provide MacCracken support to doctoral students. Each program may nominate one candidate.

Nominations will be reviewed by representatives of the CAS Honors Committee and the GSAS Honors and Awards Committee. Final recommendations will be made to the Deans.

Criteria

Each department and program may nominate one student who has shown exceptional academic promise with proven success and commitment to teaching. Applicants must present a clear and coherent plan for a course that combines the following factors: the needs of the specific department, the College of Arts and Science curriculum and the graduate student’s special expertise. A proposed course, if new, must be approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee of the College of Arts and Science, and then must be approved at a full faculty meeting of A&S.

Nominated students must have a minimum grade point average of 3.3, be within seven years of their first term of enrollment in the doctoral program during the award year 2008-09^*, have successfully completed 66 percent of credits attempted while at NYU (courses with IP, IF, N, W, and F grades are not considered successfully completed) and meet the GSAS policy requirements for time to degree.

The award is for post-MacCracken students. This means that eligible students must have completed their full MacCracken commitment (four or five year award term) before 2008-09. In departments where students normally graduate within five years, nominations will be considered for students who will be in their fifth year of funding in 2008-09. In such cases, it is expected the student will graduate in May 2009 and that the student will receive the Prize Teaching Fellowship rather than the MacCracken support. If the department’s standard academic-year stipend is higher than $22,000, the department may supplement the Prize Teaching Fellowship stipend in order to increase it to the standard level. No further funding will be permitted and the unused MacCracken year will not be returned to the department. Doctoral students who are not enrolled in MacCracken departments are not eligible for the program.

If a student is awarded both the Prize Teaching Fellowship and another GSAS award of full support (e.g., the Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship) or an external award providing full support, the student must choose which award to accept. Both cannot be received at the same time, nor can the GSAS award be deferred.

Deans Santirocco and Stimpson are delighted to present this new fellowship within Arts and Science. It recognizes exceptional students, who are both highly promising researchers/scholars and teachers, and who will serve teaching and learning in important ways.

Arts and Science Prize Teaching Fellowship Application Instructions

Nominations are due by no later than Friday, February 15, 2008, at 4:00 pm.

The following materials are required as part of the nomination packet. Some items are submitted both in hard copy and electronically. Electronic submissions must be through the GSAS-CAS Teaching Awards Blackboard site that departmental designees will have access to. Please hand-deliver the signed hard copy packet, including the Application Cover Page, to the following address:

GSAS Office of Academic and Student Life
½ Fifth Avenue, Garden Level
(between Washington Square North and Washington Mews)
212-998-8060
E-mail: gsas.studentlife@nyu.edu

Please carefully read each item’s instructions.

1. Application Cover Page [download here] (hard copy).
   
2. NYU official transcript (hard copy).
3. Applicant’s curriculum vitae (electronic and hard copy).
4. Letter of support from the department chair (electronic does not need signature; hard copy on department letterhead needs original signature). This letter should clearly indicate why the student has been chosen for this honor, including his or her teaching qualities. It should also describe the significance of the courses to the undergraduate program and the estimated enrollment during each semester.
5. Course description, including outline of syllabus and goals of the course (electronic and hard copy).
6. Statement by the nominee explaining how winning the Prize Teaching Fellowship fits into his or her research/academic and professional development goals (electronic and hard copy). No more than 500 words.
7. Teaching evaluations (hard copy). Departments may submit up to 15 departmental or school evaluations for courses involving the nominated student; please number and group appropriately. Each grouping should have a brief introductory summary that details the course number, course title, semester course given, professor and department under which the course is taught, and whether the course was undergraduate or graduate level. CAS will supply any available Course Evaluation Guide information.
8. Online Nomination Form (electronic). Departmental designees should access the GSAS-CAS Teaching Awards Blackboard site to submit electronically the nominated student’s information.

 

* Eligibility beyond seven years may be extended on an exception basis, consistent with the Graduate School's normal review of financial aid eligibility. The common reasons for extension are (a) time off for an official leave of absence; (b) up to four semesters of field work, if the field work occurred within the first seven years of enrollment and the student did not receive a GSAS stipend for the semester(s); and (c) exceptional academic circumstances that are beyond the student's control (e.g., the academic advisor left; serious illness).