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Graduate Teaching Award Tasks

General Description:

This annual award is generally given at the end of the year (Fall) event. However, this has been delayed in the past to the BBQ in June. It is rewarded to the professor who has been an astounding teacher for a graduate course or sequence. It is determined by teacher evaluations and is decided by a graduate student committee.

Instructions:

  1. Contact Carolyn Kutner (ckuttner@ece.ucsd.edu) for CAPE Evaluations. She will point you to someone who knows about the CAPE Evaluations. (Last year (2001), Christina Whitehead was in charge of them) You will want to look at the full academic school year.

  2. Check with the grad council to schedule a teaching award meeting because you'll probably want to have some of the grad council members in the committee. (Do this by sending an email to the grad council list) After you've established a date, send an email to the grad list announcing a teaching award meeting and asking for "professor praise". This is an example email:

    ****************************************************
    Did you have an outstanding professor in an ECE class last year?

    We want to know all about it!!!
    ****************************************************

    The ECE Grad Teaching Award Committee will be meeting on Wednesday, April 25th, to select the recipient of this year's award and we need your help! Send us your "professor praise" with the name of the course you had with the professor, or, come join the ECE Grad Teaching Award Committee!! If you're interested, send me an email back. Thanks.

  3. Once meeting is scheduled and planned, send a reminder email a week before the meeting and day of meeting. Bring CAPEs, a calculator, pens, and paper to the meeting. This meeting's location is often at Round Table's with pizza. SAVE your receipt for reimbursements. The CAPEs should be organized by quarters, separate evaluations among members and fid the CAPE evaluations with the highest marks. Look at evaluations to estimate a threshold and pick professor's that have excelled this overall threshold. Professors that have won the award before are not considered. The past awardee's include.

    R. Hecht-Nielsen (1996)
    P. Cosman (1997)
    E. Yu (1998)
    B. Rao (1999)
    L. Milstein (2000)
    E. Masry (2001)

    The rest is up to you...What makes a professor great? Look at the comments by students, marks, and try not to let your bias affect the decision.

  4. After this is done, send an email to grad council stating the winner of the award.

  5. Determine when the award will be presented and then approach the winning professor personally and congratulate him/her on his/her work.

  6. The Award:

    • Paper Certificate:

      For the actual award, you'll need to make a certificate and purchase a frame. The file will be made available to you.

    • Plaque:

      For the engraving of the plaque, the place we normally get the engraving done is at

      Awards Designers Scriber
      7736 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
      858-268-0607

      Before you get this done, you should write Adolfo (ajuarez@ece.ucsd.edu) an email about this topic. Usually, the chair's assistant (but I think that Sylvia Flores has retired) is responsible for reimbursements. You'll need to get approval from the chair (if you want the department to cover it). Send an email to the chair (cwt@ece.ucsd.edu) indicating the recipient even if you don't want the department to cover it. I think the department is often behind in engraving their TA awards and you might be asked to do that also. Keep receipt for reimbursements.

    • Gift:

      We aim for something around $50. Talk to the treasurer if you want something more. If you know about something that the professor likes (i.e. one professor always carried books into class, the grad council got him a backpack) then you should try to be personal. Otherwise, gift certificates to UCSD bookstore or a restaraunt is acceptable.

  7. Award presentation

    Invite the professor to one of our grad student parties or events. Speak of why they won the award,etc. Also coordinate with the chairs for a faculty meeting. Professors like being acknowledged in front of their peers.

    Any questions, just email naramos@ucsd.edu