THE TEACHING ECONOMIST - William A. McEachern 
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Issue 28, Spring 2005
William A. McEachern, Editor
Teaching Awards for Graduate Students
The Teaching Econ online discussion list had a thread recently about teaching awards. Someone wrote they had heard of new job market candidates being warned not to list any teaching awards on their CVs so as not to signal an interest in teaching that might detract from a research focus. I heard as much years ago. Is there any truth to this, or is it a recycled folktale? Are some job candidates suppressing their teaching laurels to improve their market prospects?
To get some answers, I reviewed all online CVs offered by job candidates from a sample of 32 departments (a master list of CVs by economics department can be found at http://www.nber.org/candidates). At least one job candidate in each of 24 departments listed at least one teaching award. Northwestern had the most, both in the number of CVs listing teaching awards, 10, and in the proportion of CVs listing awards, 42%. Next was Stanford with six CVs listing awards, or 33% of Stanford's CVs. Illinois had four, or 22%. MIT had three, or 11%. At two each were UC-Santa Barbara (33%), Minnesota (12%), UCLA (11%), Harvard (8%), and Columbia (8%). These 24 departments averaged 14 candidates in the market and an average of two CVs listing awards.
Of course, even if some job candidates list teaching awards, some others from these same departments could still be suppressing such information. Another way to get at this possibility is to identify a winner independent of the CV (such as through a department or university announcement), then check with the winner's CV to see if that award is listed. In those cases where I could learn of an award independent of the CV, I found the award listed on the winner's CV.
The eight departments with no CVs listing awards averaged only five CVs in the market, and most departments had four or fewer. Were awards suppressed on CVs in these departments, or were there simply no teaching awards available? I reviewed department and university material for these eight departments, but found no evidence that any offers teaching awards to graduate students.
We would expect job candidates to list their teaching experience, and they do, but many non-winners seem to be making the most of their teaching credentials by listing teaching evaluation data, responsibilities for training or coordinating TAs, and even nominations for teaching awards (as the Oscar crowd crows, simply being nominated is an honor).
I am now more skeptical that job candidates underplay evidence of good teaching. The job market for most is so competitive and intimidating that applicants seem to be listing every scrap of evidence that might boost their employment prospects.
With most departments offering graduate students a chance at some kind of teaching award, departments without such laurels may be depriving their job candidates of a useful signal. Teaching awards also carry other benefits, such as creating a positive reason to (1) observe graduate students who are teaching (2) ask students to evaluate the teaching performance of graduate students. Incidentally, a teaching award seems to have more cachet if it has a name, such as the Demarest at Illinois, Howard at UCLA, Wueller at Columbia, or Saunders at Indiana (named after teaching legend Phil Saunders).