The Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Teaching recognizes two distinct categories of honor: the campus-selected Outstanding Educators and the system-selected Educators of the Year. From the larger group of up to 70 Outstanding Educators come the up to six Educators of the Year

Outstanding Educators are faculty who have been selected by individual campus committees and designated by each college or university president as candidates for the Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Teaching. To be recognized as Outstanding Educators, each of these faculty members has demonstrated in a portfolio consistently exemplary teaching and evidence of additional contributions to student learning. In addition to being subject-matter experts, these educators have also demonstrated other teaching-related achievement, such as  advising, mentoring, pedagogical development, and service to students, their college or university, and to the system.

No more than 70 faculty are designated as Outstanding Educators in any year, from among the system’s 8,000+ full-time faculty in unlimited, tenured, or tenure-track positions.

Educators of the Year are chosen from among the Outstanding Educators by a system-wide review committee. This committee recommends to the Senior Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student Affairs the names of up to six awardees whose work reflects the diversity of teaching missions among the institutions within the system.

At the annual Award Ceremony, all Outstanding Educators and Educators of the Year are honored as representatives of the very highest standards of teaching and service that characterize  the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. Each Outstanding Educators receives a hand-crafted silver medallion and framed certificate. Each Educator of the Year receives a hand-crafted gold medallion and an honorarium of up to $5,000.