Council Frowns At Awards For Teaching

The Faculty Council yesterday gave a cool reception to a proposal that the College offer three awards for teaching excellence each year, members of the council said yesterday.

The proposal, submitted to the council by the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE), suggests that a prize be awarded in each of the three General Education areas: Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences.

Council members said that, among other things, the council worried that the awards might stir up tenure controversies and that students might not always distinguish between teaching ability and teaching performance.

However, the council will invite CUE proponents of the plan to attend the group's meeting next week to discuss what general incentives the College should provide to encourage better teaching for undergraduates.

Responding to perennial faculty skepticism about the legitimacy of some "independent work" projects, the council yesterday also began a discussion of problems with the current guidelines.

Council members said the group raised very general questions, among them what credentials a project's supervisor should have, what standards of evaluation should be, and how many semesters of independent work students should be allowed to take in their four years.

Both discussions will continue when the council meets again next week