The Award
The Prize Teaching Fellowship recognizes up to ten graduate students per year for their outstanding performance and promise as teachers. It is considered among the highest honors that Yale bestows upon its graduate students. The Fellowship is awarded based on undergraduate student and supervising faculty evaluations. The Fellowship carries a cash prize of $3000, awarded in the spring, and the recipients are honored at an annual dinner hosted by the Deans of the Graduate School and the College. Prize Teaching Fellows also receive a certificate during the Convocation ceremony during their commencement year.
The Nomination Process
Students in Yale College may nominate graduate students enrolled in a Ph.D. program whom they had as a Teaching Fellow (TF) or Part-Time Acting Instructor (PTAI) in an undergraduate course in either the fall or spring term.
Twice a year, at the end of the fall term and in the middle of the spring term, the Yale College Dean's Office will invite Yale College students by email to nominate TFs. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, graduate student instructors should not solicit their students for nominations but, if asked by undergraduates how to go about making a nomination, they should instead refer to this website.
Nominations need not be long, but they should be detailed enough about how a TF or PTAI has excelled as an instructor rather than express general platitudes of enthusiasm. This is not a popularity contest or an election in which determination is made merely on the number of nominations received. The selection committee reads the letters of nomination and pays attention to the quality rather than just the quantity of information it receives.
Once student nominations have been received and sorted, the selection committee will contact relevant departments and seek a letter of support from the TF or PTAI’s supervising course instructor. The DUS, DGS, Chair, or other departmental officer of the program sponsoring the course may also provide supporting information. These additional materials help the selection committee make its final choices from among those nominated by undergraduates.
Letters of nomination must include the full name of the graduate student being nominated for the Prize Teaching Fellowship, the name or number of the course in which the graduate student taught, and the term (fall or spring) in which it was offered.
Deadlines
The deadline for receipt of letters of nomination is noon on March 27, 2026. Selection will be made in the spring by a committee co-chaired by the Director of the Teaching Fellow Program in the Graduate School and an Associate Dean of Yale College. Prize winners will be notified in April.
