The University of Wisconsin–Madison provides over 2,000 teaching assistant (TA) opportunities to graduate students across a wide variety of disciplines. The contributions of TAs in the classroom, lab, studio, and field are essential to the university’s educational mission.
In order to recognize excellence on the part of TAs across campus, each year the Graduate School, with administrative and financial assistance from the College of Letters & Science and the Morgridge Center, sponsors awards for exceptional teaching by graduate students. These awards are open to all UW–Madison master’s and doctoral students appointed as TAs.
The campus-wide TA Awards recognize student excellence in four categories:
The Early Excellence in Teaching Award recognizes outstanding performance by TAs with fewer than four semesters of teaching experience.
The Advanced Achievement in Teaching Award recognizes TAs with four or more semester of teaching experience at UW–Madison who are not in the final year of their graduate study.
The Capstone Teaching Award recognizes TAs with an outstanding teaching record over the course of their UW–Madison tenure. This category honors TAs who are dissertators at the end of their graduate program and planning to defend their dissertations by the end of the academic year.
The Excellence in Community-Based Learning Teaching Award recognizes TAs who have demonstrated outstanding instruction using a community-based learning approach.
2024-25 Award Nominations
The nomination deadline for 2024-25 awards is Monday, November 18, 2024. For nomination details and timeline information, visit the L&S TA Awards webpage.