It’s that time of year again — time to nominate your excellent instructors to receive a Teaching Excellence Award on behalf of the student body! For the past three years, the Illinois Student Senate has solicited nominations of excellent instructors across campus for this high distinction, and it looks forward to presenting the awards again this year to five of our campuses finest educators!

For the past month, the Illinois Student Senate’s Standing Committee on Academic Affairs has been hard at work preparing to host the fourth annual awards banquet. These awards present the student body with an opportunity to give back to instructors who have helped shape our institution, our academic careers and our lives for the better. The Standing Committee on Academic Affairs received over 800 different nominations last year, and we are hoping to double the number this year! There are hundreds of educators on campus who are deserving of this award, and we hope to receive some excellent nominations.

Instructors who are nominated by the Standing Committee on Academic Affairs and confirmed by the senate are invited to a banquet held in their honor. Traditionally, this banquet has been attended by senior administrators from across the campus community, including the chancellor, provost, deans, the vice chancellors and department Heads. This year, the Standing Committee hopes to have one of our campuses excellent a capella groups come and perform for the banquet. Award recipients receive an individual plaque, as well as have their names engraved on the perpetual plaque which is displayed year round in the Student Government Complex.

Last year’s recipients were: professor Roy Axford from the College of Engineering, teaching assistant Seda Durguner from the College of Business, professor Andrew Leipold from the College of Law, and instructor Eric Snodgrass from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Each of these instructors represent the very best in higher education from our campuses various colleges and schools, and we look forward to reviewing the nominations that we receive this year.

These awards are not restricted to one type of instructor — professors, lecturers and teaching assistants have all been presented with Teaching Excellence Awards in the past.

To submit a nomination for your excellent instructor(s), please go to “http://tinyurl.com/TeachingExcellenceAwards.”:http://tinyurl.com/TeachingExcellenceAwards

The committee will be accepting nominations of excellent instructors up through Jan. 20. For more information about the awards or if you have any questions, please feel free to email the Standing Committee on Academic Affairs at [email protected].

*Jim Maskeri,*

Chairman, ISS Standing Committee on Academic Affairs

student senator, Humanities