Nature of the Program
The Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching recognizes consistently superior teaching at the graduate, undergraduate or professional level in keeping with the State University's commitment to providing its students with instruction of the highest quality.
Selection Criteria
The primary criterion is skill in teaching. Additionally, consideration is given to outstanding service to students, as well as service to the State University and to the campus. The following criteria are to be used in selecting nominees for this award:
Teaching Techniques and Representative Materials
There must be positive evidence that the candidate performs superbly in teaching. The nominee must maintain a flexible instructional policy which adapt readily to student needs, interests and problems. Mastery of teaching techniques, including different instructional practices that adapt to different courses, must be demonstrated and substantiated.
Student evaluations (in the form of student questionnaires administered and compiled by persons other than the nominee) should be presented for several different courses over a period of several recent years to provide a clear idea of the nominee's impact on students.
Student Services
In relating to students, candidates must be generous with personal time, easily accessible, and must demonstrate a continual concern for the intellectual growth of individual students. The focus here is the accessibility of the nominee to students outside of class (e.g., mentoring student research, office hours, conferences, special meetings, and the nominee's responsibility in terms of student advisement).
Academic Standards and Requirements, and Evaluation of Student Performance
Candidates must set high standards for students and help them attain academic excellence. Quantity and quality of work that is more than average for the subject must be required of the students. Candidates must work actively with individual students to help them improve their scholarly or creative performance. This individual interaction is an important source of information that indicates the nature and level of instruction offered by the nominee. Consideration is to be given to the quality, quantity, and difficulty of the tasks or work assigned to students.
Candidates' evaluations of students' work must be strongly supported by evidence. Candidates must be willing to give greater weight to each student's final level of competence than to the performance at the beginning of the course. Since expert teachers enable students to achieve high levels of scholarship, it is possible that the candidates' marking records may be somewhat above average. There must also be evidence that candidates do not hesitate to give low evaluations to students who do poorly. For this category, consideration should be given to grading patterns, articularly grade distributions for all courses in at least two recent years. Evidence in support of student performance may also be assessed by the accomplishments of students, including placement and achievement levels.
Eligibility Criteria specific to the Excellence Award for Adjunct Teaching
- Nominees must be adjunct faculty as generally defined by the specific SUNY institution. Individuals serving in full-time professional or academic positions at a SUNY institution are not eligible for this award;
- Nominees must have taught, over the proceeding five years, a total number of courses equivalent to one-half of a three-year full-time teaching load in the appropriate department;
- Nominees may also serve in adjunct roles at other educational institutions; and
- Nominees must be employed by the nominating campus at the time of the nomination.
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Retirees serving as adjunct faculty are not eligible for nomination.
Nomination Process
The programs require that nominations coming forward to the system administration level be the product of an objective and rigorous campus review. Further, the nomination process should benefit from the involvement of a broad spectrum of the campus community including faculty, students and administration. Under no circumstance may individuals apply — or self-nominate — for these awards.
Use this nomination checklist to compile the nomination packet.
Completed nomination dossiers must be submitted electronically by the dean's office of the nominee's school/college to the Center for Learning and Teaching at clt@binghamton.edu no later than Tuesday, November 25, 2025.
For More Information
For complete details about the Chancellor's Awards for Excellence in Adjunct Teaching, please visit the following website: