Skip to main content
Sign In

Home Future StudentsCurrent StudentsFaculty & StaffPatientsAlumni

 

Application Process

How to apply to the Academy of Medical Educators

There are no academic rank or degree requirements for membership in the Academy; the focus is on outstanding accomplishment. Excellence in any two areas of medical education (see below criteria) is necessary to qualify for membership. Selection is a competitive, criterion-based and external and internal peer-reviewed process. The number of applications accepted per year is limited and diversity of applicant contributions and departments is considered in the selection process. Excellence must be sufficiently documented via a Teacher’s Portfolio.​


​​December 15th  ​Deadline to submit an Email of Intent to Apply*
​February 1st ​Deadline to submit an Application*
​May 1st ​New Members announced
 

 

*all documents should be submitted to Kathy.Werfelmann@ucdenver.edu

​​

​​SELECTION CRITERIA

Successful applicants must:

    1. Demonstrate excellence through multiple measures in any two areas of medical education. Those areas include:
      • Direct Teaching
      • Instructional Development and Curricular Design
      • Advising and Mentorship
      • Educational Administration and Leadership
      • Educational Research and Scholarship
    2. Appropriately follow all application instructions

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:

    1. A Cover Letter:
      • Distinctly identify the two areas in which you believe you most competitively demonstrate excellence.
      • Depth of commitment in an area is weighted more heavily than superficial involvement in multiple areas.
    1. A Statement of Academy Contribution (LIMIT: 1 page)
      • Address how you as a member would commit to, promote and engage in the mission and work of the Academy. Please be specific.
      • You may wish to review the membership benefits and expectations outlined on the website.
    1. A Personal Statement: (LIMIT: 1 page)
      • Discuss your educational and teaching philosophy in the context of your students’ learning.
      • Reflect on your career as an educator – the past, the present and the future.
    1. A Focused Teacher’s Portfolio: (LIMIT: 10 pages including any attachments)
      • Describe in detail your contributions in your two chosen areas of excellence, including how your contributions were measured.
      • Each main area should include the following subsections labeled as such:
              1. Overview
              2. Recent Achievements, highlighting those within the last 5 years
              3. Documented impact and outcomes:
                    • Best if presented as summary data in the form of evaluations, formal interviews, charts, changes made, etc.
                    • Define your contributions to the learners or the learning community.
                    • Describe the measures that you (or others) used to objectively measure your contributions.
                    • Demonstrate and summarize the effects of education-related projects or leadership activities. What changes did your projects yield?
                    • Demonstrate significant self reflection
                    • See Advice for respective focus areas listed below:
                                • The competitiveness of your application will be primarily determined by your documented excellence in your two chosen areas of focus. 
    1. A Letter of Support
      • Ideally, this will come from your Department Chair or other individual who has the ability to attest to and briefly describe your accomplishments.
    1. Application Formatting Instructions
      • Please use 11 point Arial Font with 0.5” margins.
      • Attachments or appendices will not be considered beyond the page limits.
Submit the completed application as a single PDF file to the Academy office. Letters of support may be submitted directly to kathy.werfelmann@ucdenver.edu.
​
​​ Print Application Instructions >>

SPECIFIC ADVICE BY AREA OF FOCUS REGARDING DOCUMENTATION OF ACHIEVEMENT:

Direct Teaching

    • Include a detailed description of your teaching philosophy specify the contexts in which the teaching and learning occur. Describe your process of reflection on your teaching and your students’ learning. What changes in your teaching have you made as a result?
    • Include evidence of impact through both summary evaluations (generally in the form of a table) and representative student comments in stated areas.
    • State the average teaching rating for the other faculty who teach in that department/unit/course.
    • Awards for teaching are also relevant in this section, but must include a description of why the award was given and who was responsible for selecting the awardees.

Instructional Development and Curricular Design

    • Include a description of design and intended learner.
    • Include course evaluations or other measures to document the impact of the curriculum.
    • As a result of the evaluations, what changes did you make?

Advising and Mentorship

    • Describe you approach and philosophy to mentoring and advising. How has it changed over the years and why?
    • Include names, initials or description of mentees.
    • Include time frame and describe the commitment of the advising/mentoring relationship.
    • Include evidence of impact such as a description of the outcomes of your mentoring relationships, scholarship achieved, etc.

Educational Administration and Leadership

    • Include description of impact including things such as new program initiated, changes made, etc.
    • Where possible include evidence of impact of changes made, programs initiated, etc.

Educational Research and Scholarship

    • State relevant scholarship in education only, NOT basic, clinical, or translational research.
    • Include the number of refereed publications (including articles, curricula, online modules, books).
​​ ​

Examples of successful Academy Applications:

Please note, that these application do not reflect the newly created criteria and requirements which must be followed for future applications.

The Academy also provides faculty development on how to create a teacher’s portfolio through workshops, which have been recorded and are similarly available on the Seminar Videos page under How to Build a Teacher’s Portfolio.

​​