Teaching Awards

The University of Calgary Teaching Awards recognize excellence in diverse learning contexts, by individuals and teams, and through curriculum design and educational leadership. A University of Calgary Teaching Award is a distinguished honor for members of our university community who, through their commitment and expertise, create deep and lasting learning experiences.

The award for Inclusive Excellence in teaching and learning shall recognize the outstanding contributions to advance and amplify inclusive excellence, where nominees have made highly impactful changes in support of equitable and inclusive student learning. These awards will be given to those who lead the University of Calgary’s commitment to achieving equitable, diverse, inclusive, and accessible learning experiences and learning environments. There are three distinct inclusive excellence awards available including at the individual, group/team, and unit level. 

These three awards have been developed in partnership with the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and will be available annually:

• Inclusive Excellence (Individual) recognizes the teaching excellence of an individual academic staff member on Continuing, Contingent, Limited-Term or Sessional appointments who have taught two or more different courses at the University of Calgary, where they have created inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible initiatives within their classroom, course, or other learning environments.
• Inclusive Excellence (Team) recognizes the collective contributions of two or more people who have created significant and sustained inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible initiatives in teaching and learning. Groups or teams may include any combination of academic staff, postdoctoral scholars, members of other employee groups, students and community partners. Evidence must be presented that demonstrates contributions were distributed, and all members of the group collaborated on the initiatives highlighted. This award is given in the name of the group or team.
• Inclusive Excellence (Unit) recognizes the collective transformational and systemic changes within a formal unit (e.g., department, faculty, or office), to inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible practices, policies and processes within teaching and learning at a unit level. These awards are given in the name of the Unit (academic or non-academic units can apply for this award) and must include evidence of systemic and transformational change that has impacted teaching and learning.

The University of Calgary Teaching Awards for Inclusive Excellence (Individual, Team, Unit) may not be awarded to the same individual, team or unit more than once unless the re-nomination is based on a distinctly different contribution. The adjudication committee may recommend more recipients in each category if multiple outstanding nominations are received.

The University of Calgary Teaching Award for Inclusive Excellence recognizes an individual, team, or unit who has demonstrated excellence and commitment to creating inclusive, equitable, diverse and accessible teaching and learning practices. Nominations will be assessed based on evidence of the nominee’s (or nominees’) demonstrated ability related to one or more of the following criteria:

Individual:

• Has had a significant impact on student learning within an academic course or program or student learning experience through promoting and demonstrating UCalgary’s commitment to establish equitable, diverse, and inclusive learning environments that are accessible to all
• Creates equitable, inclusive, and accessible pathways to learning and removes barriers within a formal or informal learning environment, that have been, and continue to be, encountered by equity deserving persons, including women, Indigenous peoples, visible minority persons and racialized persons, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ2S+ persons
• Demonstrates inclusive, equitable, respectful, and diverse teaching and learning practices
• Recognized as someone that inspires meaningful change within the teaching and learning community
• Examples of individual awards for inclusive excellence may include (but are not limited to):
  • Designing a course and learning experiences using Universal Design for Learning principles 
  • Creating inclusive and anti-racist learning environments 
  • Ensuring diverse and multiple perspectives are included in course content

Team:

• Collaboratively and actively strives to remove barriers within a formal or informal learning environment, that have been, and continue to be, encountered by equity deserving persons, including women, Indigenous peoples, visible minority persons and racialized persons, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ2S+ persons
• Collaboratively promotes and demonstrates UCalgary’s commitment to establish equitable, diverse, and inclusive learning environments, courses, programs or student learning experiences that are accessible to all
• Collaboratively supports and models inclusive, equitable, respectful, and diverse teaching and learning environments; may contribute to systemic (unit) change
• Contributes to a community of people within teaching and learning that inspires meaningful change
• Examples of team awards may include (but are not limited to):
  • Conducting a curriculum review using inclusive practices and focuses looking at the curriculum in a program through an EDIA lens
  • Designing a course as a team or series of courses in a program to embed inclusive and accessible practices           

Unit

• Has achieved formal and systemic change at a unit level in teaching in learning that demonstrates UCalgary’s commitment to equity, diversity, inclusivity and accessibility
• Removes barriers that have been, and continue to be, encountered by equity deserving persons, including women, Indigenous peoples, visible minority persons and racialized persons, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ2S+ persons
• Demonstrates inclusive unit culture, cross-unit involvement, senior leadership involvement, policies, operational procedures and guidelines, curricular innovation that address and promote equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in teaching and learning initiatives
• Models inclusive, equitable, respectful, and diverse teaching and learning environments while supporting the development of future educational leaders to work effectively in a pluralistic society by acquiring, intercultural competence and embracing anti-racist approaches
• Recognized as a leader outside of their unit for implementing systemic changes that have impacted teaching and learning across the unit
• Examples of systemic change at the unit level may include (but are not limited to):
  • Mentoring initiatives throughout faculty
  • Creating equitable pathways to program admissions for students from equity-deserving groups
  • Implementing recommendations from a curriculum review that lead to changes that impact students across a program

The nomination should be prepared by the nominator(s) and the nominee. Nominators may be one of, or any combination of academic staff, academic administrators, staff, or former students.

The nomination package includes:

• An online form verifying the nominee’s and nominator’s contact information, and the award they are being nominated for.
• A nomination letter (2-page maximum or 5 minutes maximum video or audio length) highlighting the nominee’s strengths, contributions, and accomplishments as they relate to the award criteria. This can be contributed by an individual nominator or co-written by nominators. Audio and video submissions that speak to the award criteria will also be accepted; and
• A nomination dossier (10-page maximum or 20 minutes maximum video or audio length). Audio and video submissions that speak to the dossier requirements will also be accepted.

3.1 Nomination Letter (2 pages or 5 minutes maximum video or audio length)

A nomination letter highlighting the nominee’s strengths, contributions, and accomplishments as they relate to one or more of the award criteria is required from an individual nominator or can be co-written by multiple nominators. Nomination letters are not included in the dossier page count; the letter should be a maximum of two pages or 5 minutes for audio or video submissions. 

3.2 Nomination Dossier (10 pages or 20 minutes maximum video or audio length)

Demonstrating Inclusive excellence in teaching and learning requires multiple sources of information that help to articulate, describe and demonstrate the work and its impact. The quality of evidence is a critical aspect of a strong nomination as is alignment across data sources.

The nomination dossier should be a maximum of 10 pages or 20 minutes maximum video or audio length:

• Inclusive excellence in teaching and learning philosophy statement (1 page)
  The philosophy statement explains the rationale that guides practice, and provides information about your context, approaches and contributions, including the nominee's understanding of systemic inequities within post-secondary education or their field and how they aim/or commit to contest those challenges through inclusive and equitable practices. It provides a narrative or story of why you do what you do to advance equitable, diverse, inclusive, and accessible student learning, growth, and transformation.
• Descriptions of specific practices, initiatives or strategies
  A description of specific strategies used to advance and support equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (EDIA). This section should include some indication of the impact and influence of these strategies on student learning, growth, and transformation. (Note: Specific strategies at the Unit Level may include a unit strategic plan, policies, procedures and guidelines that advance EDIA in teaching and learning, or formal programs implemented across a unit that explicitly addresses inclusive excellence in teaching and learning)
• Evidence based on the perspectives of others 
  Evidence of the impact of EDIA has had on the learning experiences of students. Evidence could include data collected from students and colleagues through surveys or focus groups, measures provided by the Office of Institutional Analysis, and/or comments from students or colleagues.
• Reflective summary statement 
  A reflection statement that provides a summary of the context for your contributions, the impact of these contributions to the teaching and learning environment, and future areas for growth.

Nomination packages are stored and treated with care and confidentially, with access limited to adjudication committee members. All written and recorded materials submitted must adhere to appropriate University copyright policies and procedures and will remain the property of the creator.

3.3 Video and/or audio submissions

Video and/or audio recorded submissions that recognize oral traditions and speak to the award criteria will be accepted. Recordings should present a first-person narrative to support the nomination. Professionally produced videos will not be accepted. 

3.4 Support

Support for creating nomination letters and dossiers, including video and/or audio submissions, is available through the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning.

Administrative processes surrounding communication, nomination and selection processes is coordinated through the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning.

A committee, chaired by the Vice-Provost Teaching and Learning (or delegate) and consisting of two academic staff members, two students (undergraduate and/or graduate), and a support (AUPE) staff, management or professional staff (MaPS) or postdoctoral scholar representative, will adjudicate the nomination files. 

The University of Calgary recognizes that a diverse staff, faculty, student and postdoctoral community benefits and enriches the work, learning and research experiences of the entire campus and greater community. We are committed to addressing systemic inequities by removing barriers that have been historically encountered by underrepresented identity groups in our society. We strive to ensure equitable representation on the awards adjudication committees. To this end, we encourage equity-deserving identity groups, including Indigenous peoples, racialized people, people with disabilities, 2SLGBTQI+ persons and women, to join and serve on these committees. All committees are provided with resources and training to mitigate bias and ensure fair and inclusive decision-making processes.

All committees are guided in the adjudication through a consensus-based discussion with reference to the criteria for the award.

Recipients will be presented with their awards at the Celebration of Teaching and recognized on the Wall of Honour in the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning. 

Award recipients will be invited to join the University of Calgary Teaching Academy, to share their experience and expertise back to the academic community.

• Research and Teaching Awards Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Plan and a 2-page guide.
• Learning resources from the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning.
• The Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at UCalgary.
• EDI Glossary to help with terminology and use.