FEBRUARY 21, 2025 — This week, UTSA celebrated teaching excellence and innovation during the third annual Celebrate Teaching Week, hosted by the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars (ADTS) in collaboration with partners across Academic Affairs.
The week’s highlights included a student panel on transformative teaching practices, a teaching showcase and several other events recognizing UTSA’s commitment to teaching excellence.
“Faculty dedication and innovation are key elements of UTSA’s student-centered culture,” said Heather Shipley, UTSA provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “Celebrate Teaching Week recognizes their pivotal role in student success, while providing an opportunity to explore new approaches to teaching, exchange ideas and reinforce our shared commitment to excellence in education.”
UTSA’s dedication to teaching excellence has earned recognition at the state and national levels, with faculty and programs consistently honored for their contributions to student learning. The university is home to four recipients of the prestigious Piper Professor Teaching Award and nearly 40 recipients of the UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. Additionally, the university recognizes exceptional faculty each year for teaching excellence and core curriculum teaching.
Driven by UTSA Academic Innovation, the university fosters a dynamic culture of faculty development, empowering instructors to enhance their teaching and support student success. On average, 40-60% of UTSA faculty engage in professional development opportunities, compared to the national average of 25-30%. Academic Innovation helps faculty connect with nationally recognized certifications and microcredential courses through the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE). More than 100 instructors across all colleges have earned ACUE Teaching Fellow certification and actively apply evidence-based teaching practices to promote student success.
Additional faculty development opportunities include workshops and faculty learning communities, like the Faculty Champions, GenerativeAI Peer Learning Network and the Civil Discourse Faculty Learning Community, all of which contribute to a more engaging and effective learning environment. Faculty-driven experiential learning initiatives — such as community-based projects and hands-on research — further bridge classroom knowledge with real-world applications, preparing students for success in today’s workforce.
Throughout the week, faculty had opportunities to share experiences, explore new strategies, and engage in conversations about effective teaching practices. Celebrate Teaching Week serves as a reminder that teaching excellence is a shared value at UTSA — one that continues to transform lives and empower the next generation of leaders.
The UTSA Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars provides institutional leadership in advancing teaching excellence across the university. Established in 2012, the ADTS recognizes outstanding faculty who have received prestigious honors such as the UT System Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award or the Piper Professor Teaching Award. Members serve as long-term advocates for innovative and effective instruction, mentoring faculty, hosting forums on teaching strategies and student engagement, and advising the provost on matters related to teaching and learning across the university.
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Students, faculty and staff are invited to join UTSA's delegation at the annual César E. Chávez March for Justice in downtown San Antonio. Free transportation will be provided from the Main and Downtown Campuses, and all university community participants will receive a complimentary commemorative t-shirt (while supplies last)
1310 Guadalupe Street, San Antonio, TexasJoin UTSA Libraries and Museums to learn more about the publishing discounts available for UTSA researchers.
Virtual Event (Zoom)PubMed is an essential database for anyone conducting biomedical or health-related research. This workshop will teach attendees how to effectively navigate this free resource and locate peer-reviewed articles using advanced search features, MeSH subject headings, and Boolean operators.
Virtual Event (Zoom)Join us for a hands-on workshop about the basics of copyright, both in education and as a researcher. We’ll dispel some common copyright myths, differences between copyright law and other intellectual property law, and teach you how to apply a Fair Use checklist to your scholarly work.
Virtual Event (Zoom)In this workshop, we will explore sentiment analysis, a method for identifying feelings in text, whether the tone is positive, negative, or neutral.
Group Spot B, John Peace LibraryThe Urban Bird Project at UTSA will discuss urban bird populations, conservation efforts, and how you can get involved.
JPL Assembly Room (4.04.22,) Main CampusLearn to use the simple but powerful features of EndNote®, a citation management tool. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn to setup an EndNote library, save references and PDFs, and automatically create and edit a bibliography.
Virtual Event ( Zoom)The University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
To be a premier public research university, providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.
We encourage an environment of dialogue and discovery, where integrity, excellence, inclusiveness, respect, collaboration and innovation are fostered.
UTSA is a proud Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) as designated by the U.S. Department of Education .
The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution situated in a global city that has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures for centuries, values diversity and inclusion in all aspects of university life. As an institution expressly founded to advance the education of Mexican Americans and other underserved communities, our university is committed to promoting access for all. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.
