Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards

Each year, UNC Charlotte’s top graduate teaching assistants are honored with the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award. The award recognizes master’s and doctoral students nominated by faculty supervisors for their outstanding and innovative teaching techniques.

We offer two Graduate Teaching Assistant Awards:

  • TA Award recognizes Teaching Assistants who performed the range of TA responsibilities in assistance to a faculty member, including running lab sessions, but who have never served as stand-alone Instructors of Record.
  • IOR Award recognizes Teaching Assistants who served as Instructors of Record for a minimum of one prior semester. This award category recognizes graduate students performing all the responsibilities of a stand-alone Instructor fully in charge of the course.

Both winners will receive a $1,000 financial award to their student account!

2024-2025 TA Award finalists:

Ahmed Abdelazeez – College of Science
Brynna Cochran – College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Samantha Cruz – College of Health and Human Services
Vishaal Devisetty – College of Computing and Informatics
Garrett Driscoll – College of Science
Sarah Edwards – College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Avery Grice – College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Katie Holly – College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Nita Khanal – The William States Lee College of Engineering
Libbie Shepherd – College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Lauren Stahl – College of Health and Human Services
Tuyen Truong – College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences

***TA AWARD WINNER: Lauren Stahl***

2024-2025 IOR finalists:

Opeyemi Alabi– College of Computing and Informatics
Juan Bolanos – College of Computing and Informatics
Leah Bourque – College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Lauren Burns – College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Melissa Hatley – College of Science
Michael-Paul James– Belck College of Business
Mohammad Khalid – The William States Lee College of Engineering

***IOR AWARD WINNER: Lauren Burns***

how it works (2024-2025)

  1. Nominees must be enrolled full-time and demonstrate superior teaching skills while serving as an instructor in the classroom or laboratory or assisting the professor with teaching in the classroom or laboratory. 
  2. The number of nominations must be limited within a program to those students who are exceptional.
  3. Nominees should have outstanding student evaluations. If the program does not collect student evaluations, the nominee can communicate directly with former or current students and request statements in support of their teaching.  The more concrete these testimonials, the more useful for the judges.  Formal evaluations measure whether the TA or IOR was organized, responsive, effective, approachable, etc; letters from students can address similar themes. Nominees without student evaluations are unlikely to succeed in the award process. 
  4. Nominees should have original teaching materials that support their nomination. 
  5. Nominees must have had significant teaching responsibilities for at least two semesters. The current semester may be counted.
  • February 17: Instructions to all the nominees will be sent out
  • February 17 to March 20: all the nominees must collect the requested documentation and submit their packet no later than 5 pm on March 20
  • All finalists will be invited to a ceremony on April 25, where the winners will be announced

Need more info? Contact Laura Pagani