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Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award

Award Description

This award honors senior tenured members of the faculty who combine outstanding scholarly accomplishment with excellence in teaching and thus personify the University’s image of the professoriate. It carries an honorarium of $5,000. Click here to see a list of Distinguished Scholar-Teacher awardees. Click here to see the schedule of lectures from the current awardees.

Criteria

The nominee must be a current member of our faculty who has served on our faculty for at least five years and holds the rank of tenured Professor. Nominees should have  a record of outstanding scholarly accomplishment and  demonstrated excellence in teaching. Nominations may be made by any full-time permanent faculty member.

Deadlines

  • Monday, August 31, 2026: Nominations open 
  • Friday, October 2, 2026: Nominations close
  • Friday, November 6, 2026: Final nomination packets due 

Nomination Process

Nominations for Distinguished Scholar Teacher must be submitted through the APA system between August 31, 2026 and October 2, 2026. 

Nominators have until Friday, November 6, 2026 to submit final nomination materials (in PDF format) via the APA system.

We’ve made some changes to the way nomination packets are submitted to the APA portal. Instead of requesting a single packet, we are now requiring each part of the packet to be uploaded separately, in PDF. This will facilitate our review of the nomination materials. Information about each document is available on the upload page, and also below on this page. If you encounter any issues or you have any concerns, please contact the Office of Faculty Affairs at faculty@umd.edu.

In addition, in order to submit the nomination to OFA, you’ll now change the status of nomination to University Review, as you do with promotion cases.

Please note that nominations that do not meet the required criteria or include all required materials will be returned to the Unit.

Nomination Materials 

Nomination materials must be searchable PDFs. If any of these required documents is not applicable to the nominee, please upload a PDF with a brief explanation of how the required document is not applicable. 

  1. Letter of Nomination: of no more than two pages, usually from nominee’s Chair, Dean, former DST, or DUP. The single letter may be submitted by multiple nominators.
  2. Statement of Integration: a brief statement from the nominee on how he/she integrates research and teaching.
  3. Curriculum Vitae: The nominee's current CV, preferably in the University of Maryland standard format.
  4. List of exemplary Research or Creative Activity accomplishments: When applicable, include h-index (indicate source, e.g., ISI or Google Scholar), citation counts, publication venues, review sources, major awards, fellowships or academy elections, etc.
  5. Unit Criteria: for promotion to full professor in the nominee’s unit. This helps reviewers unfamiliar with the standards in the nominee’s field.
  6. Course Listing: A listing of courses taught by the nominee over the last five years.
  7. Course Experiences Surveys: in the standard format using IRPA Tableau (Administrator version preferred).
  8. Student Comments from Feedback Surveys: Include all comments from courses taught by the nominee in the last five years Please cut and paste comment text into a single document.
  9. List of subsequent placements of graduate students: Include titles and institutions, organizations, or corporations, when known. Note: working with graduate students is not a requirement for this award.
  10. External Letters of Support: Letters of support from at least two, but no more than three, distinguished scholars outside the university. These letters should focus on the nominee's research accomplishments. Please note any collaboration between the letter writer and nominee, or request this from the letter writer.
  11. Student Letters of Support: Letters of support from at least two, but no more than three, current or past students.

Additional materials that further illuminate the nominee's contributions and achievements as a teacher and scholar may be included in a supplemental section:

  • Information related to curriculum development, student mentoring, and/or innovative teaching techniques.
  • Other contributions to the learning and development of members of the University of Maryland community, other higher education communities, K-12, or other communities.
  • Detailed description of awards and honors received.
  • Media Reviews.

Please do not include other letters of support or copies of syllabi.

Questions about the awards or the nomination and review process should be directed to the Office of Faculty Affairs, faculty@umd.edu.