Others may have already responded to you directly on this, Keith, but there
is a procedure described in the Newsletters (see Winter 1997, p. 5) where
the participants are chosen from a blind refereed competition.  The two
organizers of this year's round sent a message over ALSBTALK a week or so
ago.
 
I think the organizers are trying to move from an "appointment" model to a
"merit" model.  You write up a proposal about how you would teach something
and the ones who rate highest by the referees are selected, all as "master
teachers", to present in San Diego.  This is expected to be a marked
improvement over the past practice which you describe.  Andrea and whoever
else was responsible for putting this into place last year are to be
commended.
 
However, one might still question the refereeing process here.  The
referees' criteria, provided to the proponents, are "clarity, creativity,
and demonstrated interest in pedagogy"; also "a variety of teaching styles"
will be selected.  I am not sure that this helps much, but it is an
attempted step forward.  Last year's reviewers of my proposal were all over
the map, the strongest detractor(s) saying that it was basically "too
novel" which seemed an odd objection, and one certain to kill future
proposals.  Whether the refereeing process is a valid one that can work
here, or merely a procedure which feigns legitimacy, time will tell.  I
despair that it could develop into randomness or personal taste of the
referee, since proponents can't target these.  If so, I'd rather drop the
referees and select by lottery - at least then people know what they are up
against.  The hardest thing in the world must be to objectively discern
value between different teaching proposals - should we even try?  Is it
like deciding which is a better colour: red or blue?  (ie. which has more
"clarity, creativity, interest", etc.)
 
I do not mean by this to suggest at all that this was last year's
experience, nor to criticize the organizer last year, nor to suggest that
last year's recipients were not the most worthy (unfortunately, I could not
attend the Symposium).  On the contrary, I think it was a process
improvement.  I want to raise the question of whether the referees can
really evaluate a written proposal on these criteria.  How do we really
know that we have made a leap from the appointment model to the merit
model?  Can we do so?
 
Cheers,
 
Peter Bowal
University of Calgary