University of Colorado
President's Teaching Scholars Program

About the Program

The President's Teaching Scholars Program was established in 1989 to honor and reward faculty members from the three campuses of the university for exemplary teaching and scholarship. The program sseeks to build collaboration between and among the Teaching Scholar guild and faculty colleagues, with an emphasis on the reciprocity of innovative teaching and learning.

The Teaching Scholars Program aims to recognize an exceptional group of skilled faculty who are advocates of and consultants for innovation in teaching excellence at the University of Colorado and who integrate their excellence in research and scholarship in their teaching. Teaching Scholars also are called upon to consult with the president of the university on means to promote and ensure distinguished teaching in all areas of the university's educational endeavor.

The President's Teaching Scholars are a guild of women and men who embody the principles and ideals of excellence in teaching and learning. Some of those principles and ideals are among the following: profound respect for teaching and learning; highest regard for students; passion and zeal for one's discipline; respect for diversity of teaching styles, diversity in group membership and diversity within learning communities; and a passion to promote civil discourse both inside and outside the classroom.

The University of Colorado President's Teaching Scholars Program begins its 15th year in the fall of 2004. The Teaching Scholars, who total sixty, begin their yearly activities with the annual fall retreat. The first retreat occurred in October 1990.

Collaboration between and among the Teaching Scholars and faculty colleagues has the ultimate goal of improving student learning and enhancing innovative teaching within departments and across the colleges and schools of the university's three campuses. In addition, the Teaching Scholars are asked to share their teaching acumen outside the university community and to exemplify the skills, talents, and characteristics of exceptional teachers and scholars.

The Teaching Scholars design and develop projects aimed at cultivating teaching. The projects are self-selected and encompass activities including designing new curricula, creating a live and static exhibit of teaching, learning new pedagogy such as teaching by discussion, and creating a newsletter on teaching.

The Teaching Scholars Program has been invited to join the National Faculty Learning Communities Consortium by Milton D. Cox, University, Director, Teaching Effectiveness Programs at Miami University, Ohio. A faculty learning community (FLC), as defined by the consortium, is "a cross-disciplinary faculty group of five or more members engaging in an active, collaborative, yearlong program with a curriculum about enhancing teaching and learning and with frequent seminars and activities that provide learning, development, interdisciplinarity, the scholarship of teaching and learning, and community building." The concept of faculty learning communities with their focus on enhancing and assessing undergraduate learning fits nicely with the PTSP Initiative on the Engaged Learner.

The President's Teaching Scholars take a leadership role at the University of Colorado both as individuals and as a community. They have a common interest in and a capacity for teaching for improved learning as well as for thinking about teaching as a scholarly endeavor. Teaching Scholars are talented and skilled in classroom teaching as well as in ensuring that the broader issues of evaluation of teaching, embracing diversity in the teaching process, and changing pedagogy are prominently addressed.