Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

University Prize Instructorship

University Prize Instructorships, sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, awards a $7,671 stipend (an approximate amount which will align with the 2023-2024 per course adjunct rate) to advanced doctoral students to design and teach upper-division courses in their field of research. UPI instructors will also participate in a professional development cohort that meets monthly. Up to five instructorships will be awarded to candidates who propose courses that contribute substantially to the undergraduate curriculum and who have demonstrated excellence and commitment to teaching. Instructors may elect to co-teach and split the stipend equally. In this case, each applicant must fulfill the eligibility criteria and complete all parts of the application.

The 2023 winners of the University Prize Instructorship are:

Kanaya Malakar (Physics): Algorithmic Art
Emma McGuirk (Neuroscience) and Anne Silveira (Molecular and Cell Biology): Seeing Inside Cells: Using Microscopy to Visualize Cellular Dynamics
Nathanial Walker (Politics): Sovereignty: Continuity and Change

Previous winners include:

2022:

Jared Berkowitz (History): Corporate Power and American Capitalism
Juliet Bottorff and Jasmine Quynh Le (Neuroscience): Central Nervous System Regeneration
Sarah Beth Gable and Miranda Peery (History and English): Violent Resistance: American Political Violence and Its Rhetorics
Samantha Leonard (Sociology): Violence & Intimacy
Ray Maresca (Mathematics): Quiver Representations

2021 (Department Prize Instructorships):

Hannah Jung (History): The Personal is Political in American History
Gess Kelly (Physics): Science and Science Fiction
Xin Yao Lin (Psychology): Technology Use and Well-Being: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

2020:

Alyssa Fassett-Carman (Neuroscience): Reactivity and Resilience: Links Between Stress and Internalizing Disorders
Mika Hackner (Politics): How Democracies Break Down
Jennifer LaFleur (Sociology and Social Policy): Geographies of Inequality: Exploring Power and Space in the United States
Raul Ramos and Emmanuel J. Rivera (Neuroscience): The Neurobiology of Somatosensation: How We Feel the World
Joyce Rigal (Molecular and Cell Biology): Molecular Diagnostics: Developing Molecular Tools to Detect Disease
Ann Ward (Sociology): From Environmental Justice to Climate Justice: Power, Inequality and the Natural World

2019:

Maham Ayaz (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies): The State and the Individual
Douglas Bafford (Anthropology): African Epistemologies
Alycia Bisson (Pyschology): Exploring Sleep: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Sari Fein (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies): Gender, Sex, and the Family in the Ancient Near East and Beyond
Katherine Kimbrell and Alejandro Torrado Pacheco (Neuroscience): The Neurobiology of Reward and Addiction
Duncan Levear and Rose Morris-Wright (Mathematics): Puzzles, Games, and Graphs
Jeremy Rappoport-Stein (Music Composition and Theory): Audio Culture and Digital Sound Production

2018:

Sean Beebe (History): Decolonization: The End of Empire
Paige Eggebrecht (English): Smoke and Brick: Working Class Fiction in the Industrial Age
Matthew Heck (Musicology): Between East and West: Russian Music and National Identity
Laura Laranjo (Molecular and Cell Biology): The Pipeline of Drug Development: From Basic Research to Your Medicine Cabinet
Jeremy Simon (Psychology): The Psychology of Prejudice

Several prior awardees have given their permission to view their successful applications. If you have any questions about the UPI application process, please contact the GSAS Department Administrator, Abigail Arnold.

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Eligibility Requirements

1. Applicants must be advanced doctoral candidates in a GSAS program who are finished with coursework and no earlier than year 3 in their program. Preference may be given to candidates who are in their 5th year and beyond.

2. Applicants must have completed at least 2 of their TA requirements.

3. Applicants must obtain their advisor’s support.

4. Applicants must be able to teach their course in-person.

Application Components

1. CV

2. Course Syllabus: The syllabus should be as complete as possible. It should include a complete weekly course schedule, a description of the learning objectives for the course, the specific course requirements, criteria for calculating grades and all the mandatory statements regarding student accessibility support, credit hours, academic integrity, etc. Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the Brandeis University Syllabus Template.

3. Written support of the Department chair for the course, with an explanation of how the proposed course complements/supports the existing curriculum. We strongly recommend that prior to your application, you initiate a discussion with the departmental leadership (chair, Undergraduate Advising Head) about whether and how your proposed course fits in with the current curricular offerings.

4. Course Evaluations: You will submit all of your course evaluations, which include both statistical summary sheets and students’ written comments from every course in which you have served as a TA or taught as a TF. Combine all of your course evaluations into one pdf document in chronological order. If you did not receive evaluations for one or more of your courses, please be in touch with Assistant Dean Canelli.

5. Statement of interest (2 pages): This statement should describe your teaching approach, course design rationale, and connection between your research and the proposed course. Remember, this is still an undergraduate-level course, so we encourage you to be cognizant of what that means for your course development. What do you want your students to learn? How will you know that they have learned those things? What are the key skills you want them to develop? How will teaching a part of your research help you develop better teaching and research skills?

Selection Criteria

1. The proposed course contributes substantially to the undergraduate curriculum, with a strong potential appeal for undergraduates in the department and division

2. Well-developed and pedagogically sound syllabus

3. Written support of the department chair for the course, with an explanation of how it complements/supports the existing curriculum

4. Evidence of teaching effectiveness, demonstrated by student evaluations, if available

5. Strength of statement of interest that describes teaching approach, course design rationale, and connection between student’s research and the proposed course

6. If there are multiple applications within a department, the review committee will ask the department chair to assess and rank the curricular need and impact of the proposed courses.

Awardee Commitments

1. Must submit a course approval request with department chair’s guidance

2. Must take any mandatory trainings required of all Brandeis instructors

3. Must help market and encourage undergraduate enrollment in their course

4. Must agree to participate in monthly cohort pedagogical and professional development meetings

5. Enrollment is limited to 20 undergraduate students, but instructors may increase the enrollment with approval from GSAS and the Registrar. Courses with an enrollment of fewer than 5 may be canceled.

Application Instructions

There are two separate parts to the application.

Online application form, including attached materials (CV, syllabus, evaluations, statement of interest), due by 11:59 PM on February 3, 2023.
Submission of letter of support from department chair. Assistant Dean Canelli and the GSAS Department Administrator, Abigail Arnold, will reach out directly to the chairs for these following the submission of applications.

Please note the following:

You will not receive a separate confirmation that your application is complete. However, if your application is incomplete, you will receive notice about the missing materials by Wednesday, February 8. You will be given until Friday, February 10 to complete your application.

Information for Departments and Divisions

February 2021, updated January 2022

In consultation with university counsel, we have created the following definitions and processes, to ensure that all prize instructorships are in compliance with the CBA. If a department would like to deviate from these structures, then the instructorship must follow the hiring protocol and pay rates of the Teaching Fellow or the Adjunct faculty union, whichever applies. If a division or department would like to alter the competition and selection process or criteria, please send the request to the GSAS Dean and Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs (currently, Wendy Cadge and Alyssa Canelli).

Any questions regarding this policy can be sent to Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, Alyssa Stalsberg Canelli (acanelli@brandeis.edu), and the Director of Employee and Labor Relations, Liz Tierney (etierney@brandeis.edu).

1. UPI: Sponsored and funded by GSAS, competition open to all PhD students in all disciplines
DVPI: Sponsored and funded by a Division, competition open to all PhD students in that division
DPI: Sponsored and funded by a single department, competition only open to PhD students in that department.

2. Awards a $7595 stipend (stipend will be equal to the adjunct faculty pay rate in that academic year) to doctoral students to design and teach upper-division courses in their field of research. PhD candidates can elect to submit a co-taught course and split the stipend equally.

3. This process is not used to find an instructor for a particular course; the courses themselves are competing cross-disciplinarily against one another on their merits (pedagogy and course design, curricular appeal and need).

4. Enrollment is limited to 20 undergraduate students, but instructors may increase the enrollment with approval from GSAS and the Registrar. Courses with an enrollment of fewer than 5 may be canceled.

5. Competition process guidelines

The Division or Department must communicate eligibility requirements to the students.

The Division or Department must establish a formal application process, which should include most of the elements in the GSAS-administered UPI process.

The Division or Department must establish a formal application review and award process. Division or Department must establish a review committee of no fewer than three members which identifies awardees and alternate

6. Selection criteria and awardee commitment details can be found in the accordions higher up on this page.

Hiring Process

Once final awardees are selected, the following must be sent to Chris Nayler (cnayler@brandeis.edu) to process the academic appointment and payment. This info should also be sent to Heather Felton (hfelton@brandeis.edu) for DivSci awardees.

Student Name and Student ID
Source of Funds (i.e. ChartString/Workday FDM)
Semester of award