Sandy Utt Excellence in Teaching Award

The Dr. Sandy Utt Excellence in Teaching Award 2025: Call for Entries

If you are passionate about your working with students, consider applying for The Dr. Sandy Utt Excellence in Teaching Award 2025. This competition celebrates not only your knowledge but also your teaching skills, your passion for the field, your engagement with students and colleagues and your innovative skills in the classroom.

Dr. Sandy Utt retired in 2019 after 34 years of teaching advertising. She donated a portion of her retirement funds to support the Visual Communication Division’s annual teaching competition.

Categories

  • tenured
  • non-tenured, including graduate students

Award

Winners in both categories will be recognized during the Innovation in Teaching panel at the 2025 AEJMC annual conference in San Francisco.

Application requirements

  • Membership in the VisCom Division of AEJMC in the year you’re applying.
  • A cover letter (two pp max) that highlights accomplishments contained in the package. Please indicate at the top if you’re submitting to the tenured or non-tenured category.
  • Your CV emphasizing visual communication accomplishments.
  • A one-page letter from a colleague or a student supporting the application.
  • One syllabus highlighting excellence or innovative practices in visual communication. The winner’s syllabus will be posted on the division website.
  • Examples of student work from an assignment in the syllabus.

Deadline April 1, 2025

Compile materials and submit at https://form.jotform.com/240097490349159

Questions?

Ask VisCom Division’s teaching co-chairs Denise McGill at mcgilld@mailbox.sc.edu and Liz Spencer at liz.spencer@uky.edu Please email both Denise and CC Liz.

Notification

A committee consisting of the VisCom Division’s teaching co-chairs, head, and vice-head will review and rank the applications and contact the applicants approximately one month after the application date.

Last year's recipients

Tenured or Associate Professor Category
Seth Gitner

Seth Gitner, Syracuse University
Associate Professor, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

Non-tenured Category
Six Patterson

Elizabeth Spencer, University of Kentucky

Assistant Professor, Dept. of Integrated Strategic Communication, College of Communication and Information


About the award: In an interview last year, Dr. Sandy Utt, for whom our division’s Excellence in Teaching Award is named, defined a good teacher this way: “There has to be a point at which you are challenging, to the point of [students saying] ‘Oh my God, what more can she possibly ask us?’ and challenging to the point of being understanding and kind.” Utt retired in 2019 after 34 years of teaching advertising. She donated a portion of her retirement funds to support the Visual Communication Division’s annual teaching competition.

If Utt’s sentiments resonate with you, please consider applying for this year’s competition that celebrates not only your knowledge but also your teaching skills, your passion for the field, your engagement with students and colleagues, and your innovative skills in the classroom.

The competition has two categories: tenured and non-tenured instructors. I’d like to especially invite graduate teaching assistants to participate!