Application window open for university teaching awards

Mississippi State is accepting applications for the 2027 Grisham Master Teacher, Donald Zacharias Early Career Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Alumni Association Graduate and/or Professional Teaching Excellence awards.

Interested faculty must email an electronic application in PDF form to the MSU Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President. An application cover sheet and instructions are available online under the Announcements section.

The University Distinguished Teaching Awards Committee will review the applications and recommend winners to the Provost, who will award up to three Grisham awards, up to four Early Career awards and up to two Graduate and Professional Awards. The Provost’s Office will announce the winners before the end of the academic year. 

All current full-time faculty members with the required years of service, regardless of rank, are eligible to apply for these awards. You must be teaching at least one course during either fall 2026 or spring 2027 to allow for observation, which is required to be eligible for any award.

Required faculty experience for eligibility include:

—Grisham Master Teacher Award: At least seven years of faculty experience already completed at MSU, teaching primarily undergraduates

—Zacharias Early Career Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award: Three to six years of experience already completed at MSU teaching primarily undergraduates.

—Alumni Association Graduate and/or Professional Teaching Excellence Award: At least three years of experience already completed at MSU teaching primarily graduate students or professionals.

For applicants who only can be observed in fall 2026, the deadline for applications is Nov. 1. All others should submit before Jan. 10, 2027. Late applications will not be accepted.

To lessen burdens on department heads or others and give applicants more responsibility and control in the process, applicants may manage and submit their own applications. Applicants may provide relevant factual information to letter writers but must not provide actual or suggested text.

Nominees should submit the following in a single PDF: 

—Application cover page

—A letter of nomination (two-page maximum)

­ —A limit of five letters (one-page maximum each) of support, with at least two from faculty and at least two from students

—Teaching vita (five-page maximum). This should include those parts of a general vita that pertain specially to teaching, such as courses developed and taught, research and scholarship in teaching, and teaching awards.

—Statement of education/teaching philosophy (not to exceed two pages) 

—Description and evidence of teaching methods and assessment of student learning (not to exceed 10 pages). Please note the committee requests no summary table of student evaluations be included; however as part of this portion of the application, you may include a subset of students’ qualitative comments for courses taught over the past three years. The committee may access quantitative student evaluations as part of its evaluation process. 

—Up to two recent representative course syllabi 

The committee will evaluate applications on criteria such as the engagement of students in learning; assessment of teaching and learning; clarity and organization of teaching; variety of teaching methods; scholarship; training and support of teaching; and professional presentation of the application. Finalists will be observed teaching their classes, in person or synchronous online.

We are deeply grateful to Mr. and Mrs. John Grisham, the Zacharias Endowment and the MSU Alumni Association for their support of these highly prestigious teaching awards.

The MSU Distinguished Teaching Awards Committee for 2026-27 includes Leslie Burger (Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture), Melody Dale (MSU Libraries), Jim Dunne, vice provost and ex-officio member; Jim Giesen (Department of History), chair; Morgan Green (Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering), Caroline Hatfield (Department of Art), Nicole Miller (Department of Teacher Education and Leadership). Bart Moffatt (Department of Philosophy and Religion). Sheida Riahi (Department of Marketing, Quantitative Analysis and Supply Chain Logistics), and Peter Summerlin (Department of Landscape Architecture).