If we want to discuss whether the College of Humanities, Art, and Sciences (CHAS) should give the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in Departmental Programs to all faculty members or only tenure or tenure-track members we first must define what the award is and what tenure and tenure-track means. 

The Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in Departmental Programs is given to a faculty member in each department and those include: biology, chemistry and biochemistry, computer science, earth science, industrial technology, mathematics and physics. That means seven of these awards are being given out to faculty members of CHAS. The criteria of this award are all focused on classroom teaching and how well a professor creates a good classroom atmosphere that fosters intellectual creativity and learning. 

This award is only offered to tenure or tenure-track faculty. Now the first question I asked myself is “What is tenure, really?” How I think of it is really old professors finally getting tenure and then just teaching one class and sitting behind a desk for the rest of his career. What it really is, is a hard and long process that takes tons of hours and preparation. The three main areas of obtaining tenure are teaching, scholarship and service.

Since teaching is only one of the three areas a faculty member could lack in the teaching, but excel in scholarship and service. 

Since this award is purely based on teaching then it should be open to all faculty because some of my best teachers here at UNI have then adjunct teachers or other non-tenure or non-tenure-track; not saying all the tenure or tenure-track professors are bad. 

What I am saying is that teaching doesn’t have anything to do with whether you’re tenure or tenure-track. It has to do with how well you foster a great atmosphere for learning and growth.