Faculty Awards

The Regents' Outstanding Teaching Awards are among the largest in the nation for rewarding outstanding faculty performance. Nominees for these awards must demonstrate their commitment to teaching and sustained capability to deliver excellence to the undergraduate learning experience.

In 2012, the University of Texas System Academy of Distinguished Teachers was established to recognize outstanding educators across the UT System academic institutions. Nominees must have received a Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award (ROTA) and have tenure or equivalent rank for non-tenure-track faculty (senior lecturer and above).

The Academy was established to recognize and honor tenured faculty members who have made sustained and significant contributions to education, particularly at the undergraduate level, within the context of their responsibilities as a full-time faculty member.

This award recognizes excellence in undergraduate education in the core curriculum (including the signature courses). Well-qualified candidates will also have a demonstrated record of engagement with curriculum reform and educational innovation.

This award recognizes excellence in graduate student teaching. These recipients are UT Austin’s educational innovators whose commitment and performance not only teach, but inspire graduate student learners.

Established in 1911, the Friar Society is the oldest and one of the most distinguished multi-disciplinary honor societies at the university. The Society awards the Friar Centennial Teaching Fellowship annually to one outstanding undergraduate professor. It is the largest undergraduate faculty award at UT Austin with an annual award of $25,000.

This recognizes a member of the faculty who has demonstrated an outstanding record both in undergraduate teaching and in concern for undergraduates as demonstrated through advising and general guidance given to students. Such concern for students should have occurred within the context of excellent scholarship and high standards of performance.

The Piper Professor Award recognizes professors for outstanding academic, scientific and scholarly achievement and for dedication to the teaching profession.

This award symbolizes the university’s commitment to teaching excellence and provides the means to recognize and reward an outstanding tenured or tenure-track teacher from the Colleges of Liberal Arts or Natural Sciences.

Faculty members considered for appointment to these fellowships should hold regular, on-going faculty positions at UT Austin and should be actively engaged in the instruction of freshman undergraduates.

This award is made every three years (the next award will be given in 2025). It is based on the belief that education involves positive change and is the aggregate of all processes by means of which a person, or groups of people, develop abilities, attitudes and other forms of behavior of positive value to the society in which they participate.