Illinois State's Center Announced Path to Excellence Awards

Illinois State University’s Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) has awarded the new “Path To Excellence Awards” to a college, school and department during the annual Teaching and Learning Symposium.  The awards recognize faculty dedication to strengthening their teaching and units that are campus leaders in faculty development as measured by faculty participation in teaching development activities during the past year.

            Winners of the 2007 awards are:

• 1st Place: Mennonite College of Nursing. MCN faculty averaged 13.8 hours/faculty member for 2007, which is 134% above the campus average of 5.9 hours/faculty. MCN will receive $3,000 from CTLT to further support faculty development activities.
  
• 2nd Place: School of Social Work. SSW faculty averaged 13.7 hours/faculty member during 2007, which is 132% above the campus average.  The school will receive $2,000 from CTLT to further support faculty development activities.
  
• 3rd Place: Department of Criminal Justice Sciences. CJS faculty averaged 9.6 hours/faculty during 2007, which is 63% above the campus average. The department will receive $1,000 from CTLT to further support faculty development activities.

“At CTLT, we operate under the assertion that good teachers are not born but they emerge from sustained work developing, refining and updating their teaching skills and knowledge,” said Patrick O’Sullivan, CTLT director. “We know that anyone can be a better teacher, and the best teachers became the best because they dedicated themselves to improvement and made it a priority in their professional lives.”

O’Sullivan said that faculty who participate in CTLT workshops and events are on a path to excellence that benefits their individual careers and professional satisfaction in the classroom, strengthens school and department reputations across campus, and benefits ISU as an institution that touts the quality of its teaching as a core component of its standing as a university of choice.

Overall, Illinois State educators spent 6,347 hours in CTLT activities in 2007–the equivalent of 846 7.5-hour days.