Teaching Scholarship Awards

Teaching Scholarship Awards will be available annually to students who have an ability to create and present excellent short courses.  Applications will be prioritized based on needs expressed by the VIMS/SMS graduate student body (as determined by polling).  Typically the funded courses will not be available within the regular curriculum.

The awards are intended to (1) foster teaching excellence in topic areas needed by the VIMS/SMS graduate community, (2) visibly emphasize that VIMS/SMS recognizes and supports teaching excellence, and (3) enhance a student's teaching credentials.

It is anticipated that three to five awards will be made each year, with awards ranging from $250 to $1000.  Courses may be taught during the spring/fall semesters or during the summer.  Awards may be used to cover reasonable costs of developing materials and executing a short course.  At the completion of the course, the recipient is expected to submit the final syllabus and supporting materials to the [[ad-as,Office of Academic Studies]] as a single pdf for archiving.  Evaluations of the course and instructor(s) by student participants will also be required using a survey instrument developed and distributed by the Office of Academic Studies.

Some potential topics are:

• Ordination & similar multivariate statistics
• Working with large data sets / data mining
• Graphing / Figures (e.g. R, SAS, Illustrator. Please specify preferred package below)
• Basic Map-making in GIS
• Advanced Excel
• Advanced Acces
• Software/programming: R, SAS, MatLab, etc.
• Bibliographic tools
• Building a scientific poster
  
• Laboratory skills (microscope)
  
• Analytical chemistry (when to use which instrument)
  

Application Guidelines:

Applications should be 3-5 pages (including cover page, but not including budget or CV), single spaced (12 pt. Times New Roman or similar), and must include the following:

1. Cover page with name(s) and affiliations of the proposed instructor(s), the submission date, and the name of a faculty member who is willing to act as a teaching mentor.  Both the student(s) and the faculty mentor must sign the cover sheet (1 page)
2. An introduction that explains the need for the course, the basic course structure, and the rationale for the structure (1 page maximum)
3. A narrative discussing the relevant expertise of the proposed instructor(s) (1 page maximum)
4. A detailed syllabus (1-2 pages)
5. An itemized budget for the proposed course followed by a budget justification (1 page maximum) Note: It is the instructor's responsibility to ensure that all resources are made available for teaching the course and that costs do not exceed the award amount (additional guidelines will be provided)
6. Instructor CV(s) (2 page maximum)

Note: Please be careful with the budget. No additional funds will be available if the proposed budget is exceeded.