Document Type

Chapter

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Documenting Teaching Excellence

Editor

Karin deJonge-Kannan and Travis N. Thurston

Publisher

Utah State University

Publication Date

2025

First Page

155

Last Page

170

Abstract

In 2022, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville launched a process to establish a university-wide set of principles guiding teaching excellence and rooted these efforts in the process of shared governance. After a meticulously inclusive feedback process and iterative revisions, we arrived at a set of four principles that we now call UT’s Principles of Excellence in Teaching (UT PoET), which reflect the specific values around teaching at our R1 (doctoral university with very high research activity), flagship, land-grant institution. This chapter will detail the process by which we arrived at these principles. In so doing, we hope to provide a roadmap for other institutions seeking to replicate our process and create their own framework to define teaching excellence in a way that works at their specific institution with their specific faculty. Although the results of this approach may differ across institutions because of differing contexts and cultures, the importance of shared governance across R1 institutions renders our grassroots approach widely relevant for helping each institution identify and document their version of teaching excellence.

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