Awards

The Faculty Senate’s Faculty Development Committee (FDC) is pleased to announce the availability of funding in support of faculty development activities by faculty members. Funded by Georgia Southern University, the programs are designed to provide time and resources for the enhancement of the teaching-learning process with emphasis directed toward classroom instruction or direct student impact.

Requests may include:

• Conference costs, including registration and travel
• Instructional or conference supplies, materials, technology, or equipment
• Funding toward Graduate Assistant line(s)
• Professional development opportunities

Funding Guidelines

• Funding Limit: $2500
• Projects may be partially or fully funded.
• Applicants are responsible for itemizing and justifying each expense on the budget.
• Requests for travel funds will be allowed per USG travel policy.
• Funding will only cover expenses as approved in the proposal and cannot be diverted.
• Requests for salary stipends will not be funded.

Award Timeline

• Award applications are reviewed and typically awarded twice per academic year.
• Applications for items with a Spring date can be submitted during both the Fall and Spring proposal times.
• For applicants are submitting for a reimbursement, the reimbursement must submitted through the system within 45 days after the item is purchased or event occurs, or by June 1, whichever is sooner.
• Because of the budget cycle, only expenses that can be prepaid by June 1 will be considered for activities.
• All applicants will be notified of their award status within one week of the review date.

Round 2 – Closed

• Proposal Deadline: December 1
• Reviews and notifications: Mid-January

Round 1 – Closed

• Proposal Deadline: Monday, August 19
• Reviews and notifications: Mid-September

Application Guidelines

Eligibility

• Full-time faculty members are eligible.
• Members of the FDC are not eligible for awards.
• Limit one awarded proposal per faculty member per academic year.
• Applicants may request funding for only one destination, event, or project per academic year.
• Applicants may request funding only for themselves.
• Faculty with accepted proposals will submit a final report of activity.

Technology

If applying to purchase technology, email facultycenter@georgiasouthern.edu with a quote from IT Services to indicate the technology would be approved for use. We recommend explaining the need to purchase the technology in a plain, accessible manner without jargon to ensure all committee members have a full understanding of why it is necessary.

Application Resources

• Scoring rubric
• Video: Understanding Funding Guidelines

The application form includes the following prompts:

1. Describe in specific details the conference or project. Include learning outcomes for projects.
2. Describe how this activity will contribute to your professional development as a teacher and/or teacher-scholar. Identify how the activity will fill professional gaps or address a professional need. 
3. Describe how this activity will strengthen the program/department/college’s ability to support student success and/or how it aligns with one of the university’s major initiatives. 
4. Budget Narrative – provide a clear and specific explanation or justification for each item.
5. Total amount requested from the FDC.

Application Review

• Submissions are reviewed by the FDC in a blind review process.
• Proposals must meet all of the stated guidelines.
• Omit names or initials of any associated persons, including students from the proposal to maintain the blind review process.

Submission Form – Closed

Deadline: December 1

Intellectual Property

Please note that the receipt of any award used for the development of creative and scholarly works and new materials, devices, processes, or other inventions which may have commercial potential is governed by the Georgia Southern University Intellectual Property Policy. University personnel are required to provide the Provost with a project disclosure on forms provided by the Office of Research Services and Sponsored Programs.

Previous Faculty Development Award Recipients

The Faculty Development Committee (FDC) is inviting applications for nomination to the Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award for Online Teaching. Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award for Online Teaching recognizes individual faculty and staff for a strong commitment to engaged online teaching and student success. This is a USG-level award, and the FDC will select the Georgia Southern nominee from the submitted applications. The FDC is a diverse group with representatives from each academic college and the library and is assisted by the Director of the Faculty Center. The nomination portfolio will need to present and/or explain the nominee’s contributions so that faculty members from various and diverse disciplines understand their value.

Eligibility

Current full-time members of the teaching faculty and teaching academic staff must teach a minimum of 12 credit hours of fully online instruction across the fall, spring, and summer semesters. Fully online instruction for this award is defined as “95% or more of the course must be delivered fully online.”

How to Submit

Email your nomination portfolio to facultycenter@georgiasouthern.edu. The Faculty Center will send all portfolios to the FDC for review.

• Email subject line: 2024 Online Teaching Award Submission
• Portfolio Title: 2024 Online Teaching Award_Last Name

Deadline: 8:00 AM on April 15, 2024

Required Documentation/Nomination Portfolio

Nomination portfolios are limited to 20 pages submitted as a single pdf file, including any appendices (1” margins, minimum 12-point font for each section below). Incorporating every kind of evidence will be impossible. Instead, each nominee will select only the strongest and most relevant evidence.  Incomplete portfolios or portfolios that do not adhere to stated requirements will not be reviewed. 

Each portfolio must include the following information:

• A Table of Contents (TOC) for the portfolio. NOTE: The TOC does not count toward the maximum of 20 pages.
• A nomination letter from the faculty member’s department Chair and one or two additional letters of support from colleagues qualified to comment on the nominee’s commitment to quality online teaching, scholarship of online teaching and learning, and service in promoting quality online teaching. These letters should describe the nominee’s online teaching and why they are especially effective in advancing student learning. See support letter guidelines below. (limited to 2 pages each) 
• A condensed curriculum vitae that includes a brief description of each of the online courses the nominee has taught in the past three years, including the semesters taught and the number of sections. (2-3 pages)
• A reflective statement that summarizes the nominee’s philosophy, strategies, and objectives focused on quality online education, including creating student collaboration in online environments and incorporation of USG standards such as Quality Matters. (1 – 2 pages)
• A brief summary of 2-3 innovative teaching artifacts or practices used in the online environment to promote student success. (2-3 pages)
• One or more letters of support from recent and/or past students. (1-2 pages)
• A well-organized set of documents that provide evidence of the nominee’s extraordinary commitment to online teaching and leadership excellence such as: data showing success of the nominee’s students, selected components of course syllabi, online materials, innovative methods of assessing student learning and achievement, summaries of recent student evaluations, peer evaluations, student mentoring and advising, peer mentoring, service and scholarship relevant to promoting online education.

Support Letter Guidelines 

As part of the nomination process, faculty members must obtain letters of support from one or two colleagues who are in a position to meaningfully evaluate their contributions to online learning. The nominee is responsible to provide these guidelines to those who write the support letters. These letters are open format and must indicate who the recommender is and in what capacity they have come to know about the nominee’s contributions to online learning. The letter may address how faculty members achieve some of the following points:

1. Achieve excellence in creating quality online teaching/learning experiences.
2. Update knowledge of effective and innovative online teaching practices.
3. Develop, utilize, and share innovative strategies recognized and promoted by the USG, such as Quality Matters, for creating quality online education.
4. Continually develop and broaden skills and awareness of technologies to enhance student collaboration and quality online education.
5. Uphold departmental standards for students to promote effective and equitable assessment in online environments.
6. Display enthusiasm, consistency and dependability for the possibilities of online education.
7. Any other relevant information about the nominee’s contributions to academic excellence and quality in online education.

The Georgia Southern University Emerging SoTL Scholar is sponsored by the Faculty Center and recognizes Georgia Southern faculty members for their emergent contributions to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Each year a competitive selection process determines one Emerging SoTL Scholar.

Eligibility

All current full-time members of the teaching faculty and teaching academic staff at Georgia Southern University who have held a teaching position at Georgia Southern University for a minimum of two years may apply for the award. Previous recipients are not eligible to apply.

Expectation

The scholar will present a workshop on implementing insights from their SoTL research to Georgia Southern faculty and graduate student instructors in the following Fall semester. Faculty Center staff will provide support in developing the workshop.

The scholar will be encouraged to submit a presentation proposal to the SoTL Commons Conference. 

Benefits

• The scholar will receive $1,000 in professional development funds from the Faculty Center after the fulfillment of expectations.
• The scholar will receive free registration to the SoTL Commons Conference if their presentation based upon this work is accepted.

Required Documentation

Nomination portfolios are limited to 14 pages (1” margins, minimum 12-point font, spacing: 1.5 or double spaced). All materials need to be combined into a single PDF file. Portfolios that exceed 14 pages or do not meet formatting requirements will not be accepted. Each portfolio submission must include the following components:

• A Table of Contents for the portfolio. NOTE: The TOC does not count toward the maximum of 14 pages.
• Narrative that outlines primary research questions and related goals, theories, and methods of SoTL scholarship activities (3-5 pages)
• Data/evidence of the impact of their teaching techniques/pedagogies on student learning and its potential impact on teaching and learning in the discipline. (3-5 pages)
• Condensed curriculum vitae that highlights relevant SoTL presentations, articles and/or publications. (2-3 pages)

Optional Items

Optional items may be included as an appendix that will not be counted as part of the maximum page number.

• Copies of 1-2 representative SoTL articles, chapters, essays, etc.
• A teaching philosophy statement.

Review of Applications

The review committee is composed of the SoTL Advisory Board and Faculty Center staff. The director of the Faculty Center, or a delegated member of the Faculty Center staff, will work with the committee’s chair to facilitate the review and selection process. Once the committee has reviewed all portfolios, one Emerging SoTL Scholar will be selected.

Criteria

The committee will consider the complete body of SoTL work produced by the recipient with special emphasis placed on research completed during the past three years and will look for persuasive evidence that nominees have:

• Engaged in an ongoing, systematic examination of issues about student learning and instructional conditions (Volume of SoTL work)
• Produced high-quality scholarly work, which contributes new questions and knowledge about teaching and learning (Quality and Significance of SoTL work)
• Documented the use of strategies for investigating and evaluating the impact of teaching practice on student learning, anchored in the research literature(Application to student learning)
• Engaged in a scholarship that is public, peer-reviewed, and critiqued (Public dissemination)

Deadline

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Mentorship Program, sponsored by the Faculty Center, is designed to foster faculty engagement and leadership in SoTL at Georgia Southern University. The SoTL Mentorship program is designed to support faculty as they begin to explore and conduct SoTL research. Each year up to two faculty members are selected to support their advancement and completion of quality, innovative SoTL research projects, which aim to improve the understanding of teaching and learning. The SoTL Mentorship Program is a (one) academic-year commitment. Recipients are assigned a mentor from the SoTL Advisory Board, who provides feedback based on their expertise in SoTL research.

Benefits

The recipient will receive $500 in professional development funds from the Faculty Center upon fulfillment of their expectations. The recipient will receive free registration to the SoTL Commons Conference if their presentation based upon this work is accepted.

Expectations

Mentorship

Recipients will organize two mentoring meetings per semester with their mentor. Mentor meetings are designed to support faculty in their SoTL work.

Workshop Presentation

Recipients will present a workshop on implementing insights from their SoTL research at a Faculty Center professional development opportunity during the Fall semester following their mentorship. Faculty Center staff will provide support in developing the workshop.

SoTL Commons Proposal

Recipients will be required to submit a presentation proposal based upon their work to the SoTL Commons Conference.

Final Report

Recipients must submit a report no later than April 15 of the academic year in which they completed the program. Recipients relinquish the stipend if the final report is not completed or if the expectations outlined in this document are not fulfilled.

The Final Report will include:

• Summary of the research activity
• Summary of plans for publication/presentation of research findings
• Reflection on the. mentorship experience
• Optional: Article draft of the SoTL project research findings
• Mentorship Program Timeline
• Spring semester Pre (May) – Recipients announced and paired with a mentor.
• Summer – Project planning complete (i.e. develop project and obtain IRB approval, etc.) with the support of the mentor
• Fall semester – Data collection and submission of proposal to SoTL Commons Conference.
• Spring semester Post – Presentation at SoTL Commons Conference hosted by Georgia Southern University and final report due.

Governor’s Teaching Fellows

The Governor’s Teaching Fellows (GTF) program is designed for faculty members who teach at accredited public or private colleges or universities within Georgia, not including the University of Georgia. Participants will be selected based on their teaching experience, their interest in continuing instructional and professional development, their ability to make a positive impact on their campus, and a strong commitment by their home institution to release time and other forms of support for the duration of their participation in the program. Any full-time, regular faculty member can apply regardless of rank.

According to UGA’s Institute of Higher Education guidelines, each eligible university may submit two nominees for the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship Spring Symposium and two nominees for the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship Academic Year Symposia. The Faculty Center will solicit faculty, department chairs, and deans for nominees. A selection committee, composed of previous Governor’s Teaching Fellows, will select two faculty to submit a nomination package to the Governor’s Teaching Fellows Spring Symposium and will select two faculty to submit a nomination package to the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship Academic Year Symposia.

The Governor’s Teaching Fellows program was established by Zell Miller, governor of Georgia, 1991–1999, to provide Georgia’s higher education faculty with expanded opportunities for developing essential teaching skills. This program is offered through the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Georgia.

Please note that selected faculty will receive hotel accommodations and meals during the program.

The 2025 Governor’s Teaching Fellows application has closed.

GTF 2025 Spring Symposium (for faculty teaching in STEM disciplines)

To indicate your interest in participating in the 2025 Spring Symposium, please submit the following items to the 2025 Spring Symposium Application of Interest form:

• Letter of intent
• Current curriculum vitae
• 1-2 page teaching philosophy statement.

GTF 2025 Spring Symposium Timeline

• Call for Applications:
• GS Deadline to submit application:
• Committee Review time period:
• Notify GS Nominees:
• Deadline to submit application to the Institute of Higher Education at UGA:

GTF 2025 Spring Symposium Meeting Dates

Sample Summer Symposia Agenda

GTF 2025-2026 Academic Year Symposia (for all full-time faculty)

To indicate your interest in participating in the 2025-2026 Academic Year Symposia, please submit items to the 2025-2026 Academic Year Symposia Application of Interest form:

• Letter of intent.
• Current curriculum vitae
• A one-to two-page teaching philosophy statement
• A one-to two-page description of the course or project that is proposed for the fellowship year (for the Academic Year Symposium only)  (see project suggestions)

GTF 2025-2026 Academic Year Program Symposia

• Call for Applications:
• GS Deadline to submit application:
• Committee Review time period:
• Notify GS Nominees:
• Deadline to submit application to the Institute of Higher Education at UGA:

Academic Year Symposia Meeting Dates

The following meeting dates from the 2022–2023 Symposia have been provided for your reference.

• September 7-9, 2022
• October 5-7, 2022
• November 9-11, 2022
• February 8-10, 2023
• March 8-10, 2023
• April 5-7, 2023

Agenda

• Sample Annual Symposia Agenda

• 2025 – Dr. Shainaz Landge, Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Physics – Regents’ Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Awards
• 2021 – Dr. Aprita Saha, Chemistry & Biochemistry – Felton Jenkins, Jr. Hall of Fame Faculty Award
• 2014 – Dr. Delena Gatch, Physics – Regents’ Award for Excellence in Teaching
• 2006 – Dr. Judy Awong-Taylor, Biology – Regents’ Award for Excellence in Teaching
• 2002 – School of Nursing – Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award (Department/Program)
• 1999 – Dr. Mark Finlay, History, Armstrong Atlantic State University – Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award
• 1998 – Pathways to Teaching Careers Program, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Dr. Evelyn Baker Dandy (Program Director) – Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award (Department/Program)