Nominations are being accepted now for the President’s Excellence Awards, the University of Nebraska system’s most prestigious honors for success in teaching, research and service.
President Hank Bounds, Ph.D., and Executive Vice President and Provost Susan Fritz, Ph.D., formally opened the nomination process in a letter to all faculty and staff last week, urging members of the university community to help lift up colleagues whose work merits public recognition.
“Great faculty are the lifeblood of any university, and we’re fortunate to have some of the very best serving across our campuses,” Drs. Bounds and Fritz wrote.
Nomination instructions and criteria, along with other details on the five President’s Excellence Awards, are available here.
New this year is the Inclusive Excellence Collaboration Award, which will recognize sustained and outstanding contributions in diversity and inclusion between two or more University of Nebraska academic and/or administrative units or campuses. Inclusive Excellence Collaboration Award winners will receive $25,000 to support their efforts in diversity, access and inclusion. Nominations are due Nov. 1.
Brief descriptions of the other awards and their nomination deadlines follow. Faculty winners are awarded $10,000 each, and the departmental winner receives $25,000 to support its instructional mission.
- Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award (OTICA): Recognizes individual faculty members who have demonstrated meritorious and sustained records of excellence and creativity in teaching. Nominations due Nov. 1.
- Outstanding Research and Creative Activity (ORCA) Award: Recognizes individual faculty members for outstanding research or creative activity of national or international significance. Nominations due Nov. 15.
- Innovation, Development and Engagement Award (IDEA): Recognizes faculty members who have extended their academic expertise beyond the boundaries of the university in ways that have enriched the broader community. Nominations due Nov. 1.
- University-wide Departmental Teaching Award (UDTA): Recognizes a department or unit within the university that has made a unique and significant contribution to the teaching efforts of the university and which has outstanding esprit de corps in its dedication to the education of students at the undergraduate, graduate or professional level. Nominations due Nov. 1.
All winners are chosen by panels of their peers and will be honored at luncheons next spring hosted by Drs. Bounds and Fritz.