The literature on teaching awards describes three purposes for introducing and sustaining teaching awards in higher education: to publicly acknowledge (or be seen to acknowledge) support for teaching; to recognize teaching excellence; and, to encourage or inspire teaching excellence (Carusetta, 2001; Van Note Chism, 2006). What goes unstated in this literature is that these purposes, and the award criteria, presuppose the winners as faculty members at the institution. Much of the existing literature has focused on the impact of teaching awards – whether for contributions to teaching culture or incentivizing improvement – and methods to ensure criteria and evaluation validity and equity (Halse et al, 2007). However, “equity” in this literature has been limited to award distribution across gender, discipline, classroom context and age; discussions of equity have not yet taken into account instructor status within the institution. Specifically, these discussions have not yet engaged with how the opportunity to win these awards for sessional, or contract instructors, is impacted by award criteria and processes.
It is to this discussion we turn in our 45-minute interactive workshop. In the workshop we introduce representative examples of teaching awards, criteria, processes and winner profiles from Ontario institutions and national bodies. We then demonstrate how existing award criteria largely forecloses the likelihood of sessional instructors being nominated and selected for teaching awards. We then work collaboratively with participants to envision teaching award criteria and processes more likely to include sessional instructors. The overarching aim of this workshop is to interrogate existing processes and criteria of teaching awards in Canada and to envision alternate and more inclusive futures.
