Recent conversations about the role of the Trustees’ Teaching Awards in the promotion and tenure process have produced this agreement, which has been widely circulated across campus at the request of Executive Vice Chancellor Jann Joseph and Academic Senate President Ken Smith. The paragraph provides a close reading of IU policy ACA-80.
The IU policy on TTAs, which is ACA-80, calls for the campuses to give these awards to colleagues “who have demonstrated that they are the best teachers,” clearly suggesting that we should be recognizing these awards as meaningful. It also says that a TTA does not by itself make the full case for excellence in teaching in the PTR process, which is very reasonable. It goes on to say that in combination with other information a TTA does represent “one piece of evidence to include in the teaching section of a promotion and tenure or promotion dossier.” So we are urged by the IU policy to value these awards and include them in the PTR process, and in fact the winners are intended to be described in rather glowing terms: as having “demonstrated that they are the best teachers.”
