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Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) Award

I. Departmental Criteria for the Award

The Classics Department offers a wide array of courses regularly taught by GSIs: Latin 1; Latin 2; Latin 10; Latin 40; Greek 1; Greek 2; Greek 10; Greek 40. In addition, GSIs serve as section leaders for several large courses in translation, including Greek and Roman Civilization, Greek Mythology, Greek religion, Ancient Athletics, and Ideologies of Sex and Gender in the Ancient World. Certain students of exceptional teaching ability have also been entrusted with their own lower-division lecture courses, both during the regular fall-spring sequence and in the summer session (e.g., Classics 10A and 10B in summer; courses in the 30 series—epic, tragedy, comedy, and philosophy in translation). Finally, our GSIs have the extraordinary experience of entirely staffing and running the Intensive Summer Workshops in Greek and Latin (which are prestigious, nationally recognized programs). Thus the Department of Classics fosters a strong tradition of excellent teaching in many diverse contexts among the graduate student population.

Given this array of courses, the Department has established the following criteria for nomination for Outstanding GSI Award:

(1) We normally require of our students that they have shown evidence of outstanding performance in both language teaching and discussion sections. (N.B. This means that only exceptionally will a GSI who has taught only language or discussion sections be nominated.).

(2) Those eligible in each competition (held early each Spring semester) consist of all Classics GSIs who taught at least one term (either Spring or Fall or Summer) in the department during the past calendar year and have already completed at least two terms of service as a GSI.

(3) A GSI who has already won the award in Classics is not eligible for repeated consideration.

We define "Outstanding Performance" according to the following criteria:

1) Overall effectiveness as an instructor;

2) Capacity to motivate and inspire students;

3) Skills in presenting course material;

4) Skills in organizing and developing course material;

5) Command of subject area.

II. Departmental Selection Procedures

The selection takes place in the first months of each Spring semester. Nominations are invited from faculty, graduate students, and department majors. A departmental committee is constituted, consisting of two faculty who have supervised many of the GSIs. The two members separately review the teaching evaluations (for all previous GSI service) of eligible GSIs and make an independent recommendation. The department chair and the departmental Faculty Advisor for GSI Affairs then reviews these recommendations and agrees on the final list of nominees. There are usually two nominees, but one or two additional nominees may be put forward if the total number of individuals serving in the relevant semesters is sufficiently high.