The QEP Committee is looking for a few innovative instructors.

Nominations for the new QEP Award for Excellence in Innovative Instruction are open through Tuesday, Nov. 7.

“Our Quality Enhancement Plan is designed to improve students’ critical thinking and real-world problem solving skills using active learning strategies, and this is one way to reward the instructors on our campus who are already doing that,” says QEP director Ada Haynes.

It’s also a way to disseminate information so that those active learning strategies can be replicated in other disciplines to further enhance students’ critical thinking and real-world problem solving abilities, Haynes adds.

“The award-winners would have to be willing to pass along information about their innovative learning activities, so instructors in other disciplines could create their own strategies based on the examples of the award-winners,” she says.

Faculty, staff, administrators, students and alumni are invited to nominate individuals who’ve used innovative learning strategies that can be replicated in other disciplines.

Three $1,000 awards will be presented. A total of $250,000 will be committed over a five-year period to support QEP grants, assessment and administration, with half of that money coming from the TTU Foundation and the other half coming from the president’s budget.

The QEP is a major component of the re-accreditation process we are undergoing with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

The top portion of the Innovative Instruction Award nomination form must be filled out by the nominator — or sponsor — while the bottom portion must be filled out by the nominee.

The form can be found on the QEP web site. For more information, call Haynes at 3815 or e-mail her at ahaynes@tntech.edu.