Graduate Student Teaching Award

The Kent State Graduate College Graduate Student Teaching Award highlights excellence in teaching and mentoring among current graduate students. The award recognizes graduate students who exemplify excellence in teaching/learning as part of their professional development and training. One award will be given to a doctoral student and one to a master’s student. The award will include a $500 honorarium, sponsored by the Center for Teaching & Learning and the Graduate College.

Photo of Maren Greve

Kent State University recipients will also be submitted as institutional nominees to the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools as KSU nominees for the MAGS Excellence in Teaching Award. The MAGS award includes a citation and a $750 honorarium that will be presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS).

Congratulations to the 2023 Doctoral Recipient, Maren Greve! Maren is a Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology. Great work!

View the Past Recipients of this award

Nominations:

To nominate an applicant, please submit the following:

  • Letter of support from the department head (Please note any departmental honors awarded to this student for excellence in teaching.)
  • Nominee’s teaching portfolio (including a link to the teaching video). Click here to learn more about the Graduate Student Teaching Award Youtube Instructions.
    • Statement of Teaching Philosophy. Please convey your core ideas about being an effective teacher. Share your values and beliefs related to teaching and learning. Discuss your goals and the methods or strategies you use to achieve those goals.
    • Evidence of instructional design for improved student learning. In your experience as an instructor, explain how you have used instructional design to develop learning materials, experiences, and environments that promote better student learning. This could include content production, learning activities, student-instructor interaction, peer-to-peer interaction, and effective assessments, among other things.
    • Evidence of Effective Student/Colleague Mentoring. Describe your experience with mentoring students outside of the classroom, whether that be related to the courses you teach or in other settings. Additionally, discuss any experience you have with mentoring your peers or colleagues in the context of teaching.
    • Evidence of Professional Development. Explain how you have used professional development opportunities to grow in your teaching excellence. If appropriate, how have you aligned professional development in the feedback you have received on your teaching?
    •  Video clip of “Teaching in Action”. Use the video clip to demonstrate how you have implemented key elements of your teaching philosophy or instructional design. A variety of teaching settings may be used for the video including but not limited to lecture, facilitated discussion, lab, etc. as appropriate to the course. Rather than expertise in creating the video, the focus should be on activities that demonstrate improved learning, such as student engagement, personalized learning, project-based learning, etc. For asynchronous online courses, a video presentation by the instructor of key engaged learning activities, or learning environments, would be examples of good evidence.
  • Current curriculum vitae.
  • Excluding the letters of nomination and support and curriculum vitae, the nominee's teaching portfolio only is limited to six (6) pages double spaced, with a 12 point font.
  • Nominations must be submitted as a single PDF document, with an embedded link to the teaching video. All materials must be submitted electronically to the Graduate College (graduatecollege@kent.edu).

The application window for the 2023-2024 academic year has closed.

Selection:

  • All nominees are reviewed by a committee comprised of faculty representing various ranks and disciplines. Recipients are selected by the Dean of the Graduate College.
  • For questions, please contact Dr. Sarah Beal at sbeal5@kent.edu.

If you are selected to receive a scholarship, fellowship, graduate assistantship, tuition waiver or any other award, your current financial aid offer, including student loans, could be reduced. If you would like to know how your financial aid offer may be affected by another award, please contact One Stop for Student Services for assistance. To learn more about taxes on scholarships and fellowships, visit the Tax and Treasury Services webpage.