Excellence in Teaching

The D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching was initiated in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 1981 to honor University of Georgia alumnus D.W. Brooks who devoted his professional life to improving the quality of society through sustained service and support of agriculture, agribusiness and the environment. Mr. Brooks was a graduate and faculty member of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Purpose

The purpose of the Teaching Award is to encourage and recognize exceptional creativity and excellence in classroom instruction in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The Brooks Award shall be the highest honor bestowed by the College upon a member of the teaching faculty for achievements in instruction.

The successful candidate must demonstrate an unusually high commitment to pedagogy. That commitment must manifest itself in a measured way that highlights scholarship, concern for the development of the whole student, innovations in learning structures, disciplinary methodologies, and adoption and integration of creative learning technologies.

Normally, one Brooks Award shall be given annually for Excellence in Teaching. Beginning in 1996, the recipient shall receive a plaque and a $5,000 cash award from the D.W. Brooks Endowment Fund.

Eligibility

Eligibility for the award shall be open to both tenure track and non-tenure track teaching faculty with at least a 30% Allocation of Effort and/or significant contributions to instruction over at least a five (5) year period and who have been employed in their non tenure-track or tenure-track positions in the College for at least five (5) years at the time the award is received. Past recipients of the award are not eligible for renomination.

Process and Deadline

Each academic department may submit the dossier of one nominee to the Office of the Dean and Director. Each department may develop its own procedures for identifying all potentially qualified applicants, but such a procedure must include a review of all applicants by a designated peer faculty review committee. The nomination must be endorsed and forwarded to the Dean and Director by the department head or designated senior faculty representative.

All nominations should be received by the deadline of August 1.

All nominations should be completed online via this Qualtrics survey.

Online you will be asked to upload the following documents:

a written statement addressing the nominee's worthiness for consideration (not to exceed three double spaced pages)
CV/Dossier – Please note that CVs should not exceed 30 pages in length.
A minimum of 3 and no more than a maximum of 5 supporting letters from students and professional peers within, and external to, the College.

The Brooks Award Review Committee will review all dossiers and recommend to the Chair of the Executive Committee the recipient for the annual award. The Chair of the Executive Committee will forward the name of the nominee to the Dean and Director. Only the Dean and Director shall make public the name of the recipient.

Candidates who were not chosen for the award are welcome to update their packets and submit for the following year.

Award Review Committee

The Dean and Director shall appoint annually a review committee of senior faculty, including the previous year's winner, to screen all dossiers and make recommendations to the Executive Committee. All votes shall be by secret ballot, and shall be recorded and maintained by the Executive Committee. If the committee does not deem any applications suitable for a category, they may choose to forgo awarding the respective category for that year.

Any application that does not meet basic guidelines as outlined on the DW Brooks webpage is subject to disqualification.

Presentation

The award will be presented at the D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards ceremony. Information about award recipients will be archived on the CAES website.