The UA Office for Academic Affairs has created the Capstone Inspiring Educator Award to recognize Alabama high school teachers who helped to equip and to motivate current UA students to achieve their academic goals.

“We want our students to have the opportunity to look back over their careers before they came to the University of Alabama and look for teachers that may have encouraged them along the way and helped them achieve their goals in coming to a major university and being successful,” said Janet Griffith, assistant provost of the UA Office for Academic Affairs.

Students graduating from UA in May 2010 can nominate a high school teacher who positively influenced their lives, and although the award is currently only open to Alabama high school teachers, in coming years UA plans to expand the award to allow students to nominate teachers from any state, according to Griffith.

Griffith said that the University has been looking into creating such an award for quite some time and hopes student participation will be high.

“We have learned from looking at other programs, that this type of recognition is not as widespread for high school teachers as we would like it to be,” Griffith said. “In some cases they are kind of unsung heroes and we wanted to take this opportunity to recognize them for that reason as well.”

Students who wish to nominate a teacher must fill out an application, which graduating students have or will receive via their University of Alabama e-mail, and submit a 250-word essay about why that student believes his or her teacher should be recognized as an outstanding educator.

Griffith said that the essay topic was intentionally left vague to provide all students the opportunity to nominate all types of high school teachers for all kinds of reasons. The deadline to submit applications is March 29, 2009.

In early April, a committee of UA students, faculty, staff, and other high school teachers will evaluate submissions and announce the winners. The selected teachers will then receive a plaque and be honored at UA commencement activities May 8, 2010 where they will be able to reunite and interact with the students who nominated them.

Callie Koepsel, a UA senior from Mountain Brook majoring in International Business, said she thought the Capstone Inspiring Educator Award offered a great opportunity for students to reflect on how far they have come and recognize those who helped them along the way.

“After you are on your own for four years in college, you sometimes don’t remember that it took a lot of help and a lot patience from a lot of other people to get you here,” Koepsel said. “Of course, you always remember to thank your parents and your family, but teachers also have a lot to do with your growing up and the shaping of who you are today. I think graduation is the perfect time to recognize the teachers who did put in that extra time and effort to really make an impact on someone’s life, and they definitely deserve to be honored for it.”