Southeastern Region Award for Excellence In High School Teaching

ACS Division of Chemical Education
Southeastern Region Award for Excellence
In High School Teaching
Southeastern Region of the
American Chemical Society

First Call for Nominations

Purpose: To recognize, encourage, and stimulate outstanding teachers of high school chemistry in the Southeastern Region.

Award:  The Award consists of a $1000 check and a medal of recognition from the ACS Division of Chemical Education.  These will to be presented at the 2009 SERMACS Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico which will be held during October 21-24.  The SERMACS Region Board will provide up to $1000 for travel reimbursement and SERMACS 2009 will pay the recipients registration fee.
Rules of Eligibility: Any individual, except a member of the award selection committee or currently enrolled student of the nominee, may submit one nomination or support form in any given year.  Local Sections within the Southeast Region are especially encouraged to submit nominations for the award.  The nominee must be actively engaged in the teaching of chemistry or a chemical science in a high school (grades 9-12) on at least a half-time basis.  The nomination should clearly demonstrate as many of the following attributes as possible:

• The quality of the nominee’s teaching; unusually effective methods of presentation should be emphasized;
• The nominee’s ability to challenge and inspire students;
• Extracurricular work in chemistry or a chemical science by the nominee, including science fairs, science clubs, and activities that stimulate the interest of young people in chemistry and related sciences;
• A willingness to keep up-to-date in the field, as evidenced by the pursuit of a higher degree in chemistry or a chemical science, enrollment in refresher courses and summer institutes, regular attendance at scientific meetings, membership in professional organizations, and other means of self-improvement;
• Evidence of leadership and/or active involvement within the profession.

Submission of Nominations:  Nominations are solicited from Local ACS Sections within the Southeast Region.  In the past, forms for the Nomination, Teachers Statement, and References were available online.  This process proved to be somewhat problematic.  This year, these forms are to be submitted electronically as .pdf, .doc, or .docx files and emailed directly to jstruss@ut.edu. 

The Southeastern Regional Board will select the recipient.  All nomination and supporting materials for the 2009 Award must be received by June 15, 2009.

We are restricting the number of reference letters to two, but we do allow co-authors on the two reference letters.  Also, the nominator does not need to be a reference.  For the 2009 Award, the SE Regional Board has also adopted a new policy to allow two nominations per local section. Teachers nominated for the Regional Award do not have to be Local Section Nominees.  We will follow the model for National ACS Awards and keep a teacher’s nomination active for a period of three years.

Additional Information:  Contact John Struss by email at (jstruss@ut.edu), by telephone at 813-273-3662, or by mail at The University of Tampa, Department of Chemistry & Physics, 401 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, FL  33606-1490.