The Award
The winners of Prize Teaching Fellowships receive a cash prize of $3000, to be awarded in the spring.
The number of Prize Teaching Fellowships is not strictly capped, but is expected in any given year to lie between ten and fifteen.
Prize Fellowship winners who wish to teach next year should consult with the DUS or chair of their department, or the DUS or chair of the department in which they wish to teach, as soon as possible after receiving notification of the award. For those Prize Fellowship winners who wish to teach as section leaders, early consultation will ensure priority in the processes of deliberation by which these assignments are made in their department.
In some departments, it may be possible to offer an independent course. Prize Teaching Fellowship winners interested in this option should be in contact as soon as possible after receiving their award letter with the chair or DUS of the department in which they seek to offer such a course. Such consultation will make clear whether that possibility exists within the curriculum of the program with which they are affiliated and will help them to develop a course suited to the program's needs in the following year. Both the DUS and the Yale College Course of Study Committee must approve any new courses.
Teaching stipends for courses taught by Prize Teaching Fellowship winners will be paid at the levels set for those forms of instruction for a given year and will be disbursed in accordance to the normal schedule of payment for those ranks.
Those selected as Prize Teaching Fellows will be honored at a dinner in the fall, hosted by the Dean of the Graduate School and the Dean of Yale College.
The Nomination Process
Nominations should be as detailed and specific as possible and include the full name of the graduate student being nominated, the title and number of the course the graduate student taught, the semester in which the course was taught, and the full name of the person making the nomination.
Students in Yale College may nominate any graduate student 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, 2024-25.
Nominations need not be long, but they should say how a TF or PTAI has excelled as an instructor rather than express general expressions of enthusiasm. This is not a popularity contest or an election in which the 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.
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 nominations by e-mailing all Yale College students and posting notices in the residential colleges weekly newsletters. 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, should instead refer them to this website.
Letters of nomination must include the full name of the person writing the letter, the full name of the graduate student being nominated for the Prize Teaching Fellowship, and the name or number of the course in which the graduate student taught and the term (fall or spring) in which it was offered. Undergraduates writing letters of nomination should include information about their own class year and residential college.
Deadlines
The deadline for receipt of letters of nomination is noon on March 28, 2025 [CONFIRM DATE].
Once student nominations have been received and sorted, the selection committee will contact relevant departments and seek supporting information from the faculty member in charge of the course with which the TF or PTAI was affiliated, or as relevant, the DUS, DGS, Chair, or other departmental officer of the program sponsoring the course. These additional materials help the selection committee make its final choices from among those nominated by undergraduates.
