Award Nominations

The Southeastern Section of the MAA is delighted to present a Distinguished Service Award at its annual Spring Meeting each year. Any member of the Section who is an outstanding contributor to our Section is eligible for nomination. The person selected for 2025 will be honored at our Section’s Meeting.

The Section Distinguished Service Award Committee encourages members of the Section to nominate deserving persons for this award. Please send your nomination letter, along with the nominees’ vitae (if possible) and any other supporting materials/letters, all as electronic documents, to Catherine Matos, Committee Chair, at cmatos@clayton.edu by January 13, 2025. We ask that you make every effort to gather these materials without the nominee’s knowledge, as it is the Section’s tradition to surprise the awardee with the award at the Section meeting. Previous nominations of candidates who were not awardees may be carried forward for consideration for the 2025 award if the nominator so notifies Catherine Matos by the submission deadline. The winner will be expected to serve on the MAA-SE Service Award Committee for 3 years after receiving the award, chairing the committee in the last year. Contact the Committee Chair regarding any questions about the process or nominating materials. 

The Section Award was made in even numbered years from 1990 to 1996 and annually since that time to the following recipients.

Nominations for the 2025 Southeastern Section Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning College Mathematics Faculty Member are now being accepted.

Brief Description: The MAA Southeastern Section (MAA-SE) established this award to honor beginning college or university faculty whose teaching in the Section has been extraordinarily successful and whose effectiveness in teaching undergraduate mathematics is shown to have influence beyond their own classrooms. An awardee must have taught full time in a mathematical science in the Southeastern Section for at least two years, but not more than a total of seven years in any collegiate institution. Each year at most one college or university teacher is to be honored with this MAA-SE section award.

Nominations for the award may be made by any member of the MAA-SE section. A complete nomination packet should consist of a nomination form, a narrative, additional documentation, and letters of recommendation as described below. Please email the completed packet by January 23, 2025 to:

Vicky Klima
Appalachian State University
klimavw@appstate.edu
Questions may be directed to Vicky.

The Section has presented this award each year since 2009 to the following recipients.

Eligibility and Guidelines for Nomination

Eligibility: Teaching is intended to include classroom instruction as well as activities outside the classroom, such as working with student groups, preparing students for mathematical competitions, directing undergraduate students in research in mathematics, directing students in the preparation of honors theses, preparing teaching materials used by others, etc.

Nominees must:

• Hold the terminal degree required by SACS to be a full-time faculty member in a collegiate institution,
• Be college or university teachers currently in the MAA-SE who have taught full time in a mathematical science in the Southeastern Section for at least two years, but not more than a total of seven years in any collegiate In determining eligibility, we do not count time spent in a postdoctoral position where nearly all the nominee’s time was spent on research, and the nominee did very little or no teaching (e.g. three semester courses a year or less), and
• Hold membership in the Mathematical Association of America

Nominees should, in the context of their institution:

• Be recognized as extraordinarily successful in their teaching
• Have effectiveness in teaching undergraduate mathematics that can be documented
• Have had influence in their teaching beyond their own classrooms

Nomination Packet: We require the same materials for nomination as the Henry L. Alder award. A nomination for this award should consist only of the materials requested below, and should not include any other materials, such as curricula vitae or other items.

• Nomination Form: Complete and include the nomination form as the initial page of the nomination packet
• Narrative: Describe the nominee’s extraordinary success in teaching by providing a narrative of the nominee’s background, experience, teaching style, special contributions, other teaching awards, and any additional evidence of the nominee’s unusual achievement in teaching. Note especially effective teaching in undergraduate mathematics and influence beyond the nominee’s own The narrative should be single-spaced in 12 pt font with at least 3/4-inch margins and should not exceed 2 pages.
• Additional Documentation: Submit no more than two pages of further evidence to document the nominee’s extraordinary teaching success. This documentation will vary greatly from institution to institution, but may include summaries of peer or student evaluations, comments on teaching, possible increases in numbers of majors in mathematics (with clear evidence of the nominee’s substantial responsibility for them), possible student success in mathematics competitions (with clear evidence of the nominee’s substantial responsibility for them), success in research in undergraduate mathematics conducted by undergraduate students under the direction of the nominee, development of curricular materials successfully used by colleagues, adoption of the nominee’s teaching methods or techniques by experienced colleagues, service as a respected adviser for a student group, Nominators should bear in mind that the selection committee might view a nomination more positively if it is accompanied not just by carefully chosen testimonials from a few selected students and faculty, but also by reports, comments, and criticism which is representative of the whole spectrum of opinion among students and faculty on the nominee’s teaching.
• Letters of Recommendation: Include no more than five letters of recommendation, not exceeding one page each, as follows:
• Two letters from the nominee’s present or former students
• Two letters from the nominee’s colleagues (one of whom could be the department chair).
• One additional letter from any one qualified to comment on the nominee’s extraordinary teaching success.