DISTINGUISHED FACULTY IN TEACHING,
RESEARCH, AND SERVICE
East Tennessee State University's mission includes the broad triad of teaching, research, and service. Each year the University accords special recognition - through a Distinguished Faculty Award - for three distinguished faculty members whose academic careers represent respectively distinctive and exemplary achievement in each of those areas of its mission.
Recipients of the three distinguished faculty awards emerge each year from a rigorous selection process. Each award carries with it a plaque, a medallion, and a stipend of $7,500 made possible by the priority placed on excellence and by the generosity of those benefactors who comprise the ETSU Foundation.
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Call for Nominations Memo
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Faculty Awards Nomination Instructions
Nominations should be sent to the Office of the Appropriate Dean no later than Friday, March 21, 2025. Nomination forms will be reviewed by the appropriate college selection committee.
Each College Selection Committee will forward the names and materials of their nominees to the Office of the Provost no later than Friday, April 18, 2025.
An outstanding nominee is to be chosen for superior achievement in teaching, research/scholarship/creative activity, or service cited in the nomination statements submitted on the nominee's behalf. The nomination statement should clearly indicate how the nominee has demonstrated outstanding achievement in the area of the award--teaching, research, or service. The statement should also indicate the faculty member's accomplishments in other areas of responsibility. While each award focuses on only one area of faculty achievement, nominees should be faculty who are generally productive, constructive members of the academic community.
Each award consists of an inscribed plaque, a medallion, and a cash award of $7,500. A faculty member may receive a particular award (teaching, research, or service) only once, but may receive each of the three awards.
The deadline for submitting nominations is March 21, 2025.
Selection and Presentation Process
Each year, ETSU will recognize outstanding faculty achievement with three awards, one each for teaching, research/ scholarship/creative activity, and service. Each college dean can nominate one candidate for each award from his or her college’s faculty. Criteria for each award as well as materials required for the nomination packets are outlined. These awards are meant to recognize excellence in teaching, service, and research/scholarship/creative activity while employed at ETSU. While each award is intended to highlight excellence in a single area, the nominees are expected to demonstrate contributions in the areas that are not directly related to their award nomination.
Nominations
During the first week of January, nomination forms for the three awards will be distributed by the Office of the Provost. Individual students, individual faculty members, or groups of students and/or faculty members can complete these nominations. Individuals may also nominate themselves if they meet the award criteria.
The completed nomination forms for all three awards are to be returned to the appropriate Dean no later than March 21, 2025. Deans should also notify the appropriate chairs of nominations within each department no later than Friday, March 28, 2025.
Selection
Each college dean will select three to five faculty members from his/her college, or use an appropriate existing committee, to serve on a Screening Committee for that individual college. Each College Screening Committee shall seek to identify the outstanding nominees in its college, based on the nomination statements submitted for each award. A college is not required to submit nominations for university awards. In the event that a single outstanding nominee cannot readily be identified for a particular award, the Screening Committee may select more than one nominee, subject to the restriction that the total number of nominees selected shall not be more than one (1) per fifty (50) full-time faculty members in the college. The definition of a full-time faculty member according to Section 2 of the Faculty Handbook will apply here.
Each College Screening Committee may submit its outstanding nominees for each category with a composite supporting statement and nomination materials to a campus-wide ad hoc Final Selection Committee through the Provost’s office by Friday, April 18, 2025. This Final Selection Committee is to be chosen by the Provost in consultation with the deans to ensure appropriate representation.
Members of College Screening Committees are not eligible to serve on the Final Selection Committee for that year.
The task of the Final Selection Committee is to choose from the outstanding nominees the faculty member to receive each faculty award--teaching, research/scholarship/creative activity, or service. This committee will also submit a composite supporting statement for the nominees, along with the nomination materials.
A list of the nominees will not be released; nomination statements will be kept strictly confidential, and the name of the person chosen to receive each award will be maintained in strict confidence until the awards are presented.
All completed nomination forms will be maintained until the awards have been presented, after which time they will be destroyed. Any materials provided by the faculty nominee(s) will be returned to him/her.
Presentation
All these awards shall be presented by the Provost at the Annual Faculty Convocation. Each award shall consist of an inscribed plaque, a medallion and a monetary award of no less than seven thousand five hundred dollars ($7,500).
A faculty member may receive a particular award (teaching, research/scholarship/creative activity, or service) only once, but may receive each of the three awards.
Guidelines for University Faculty Award Nominations
Nomination materials are to be submitted electronically and logically presented to facilitate review. At minimum, the applicant’s dossier should include the following sections: Original Nomination Form; Dean’s Letter; Supporting Documentation specific to the award; Curriculum Vitae, Letters of Support; and Appendices as appropriate.
Nominees and college-level Selection Committees are expected to use discretion with regards to the content of the nomination packets. Packets should include only material relevant to the award criteria. Examples of materials that are typically non-essential and should be excluded from the packet are as follows:
- Conference program booklets
- Student Evaluation Forms
- Committee meeting announcements, agendas, minutes, etc.
- Thank you letters from the nominee
- Copies of anything that can be equally accounted for in a vita
- Extra title pages
Colleges may consider re-nominating worthy candidates, even though they have not been chosen before.
Colleges should adopt specific policies and procedures for submitting nominations.
Faculty Teaching Award Criteria
The award will be given for consistently superior teaching accomplishments.
The nominee must be a full-time faculty member as defined in Section 2 of the Faculty Handbook in service for at least three (3) full years at ETSU, and only teaching that applies to ETSU students, regardless of the teaching venue, will be considered in making this award. Faculty who have achieved emeritus status no more than one year prior to the nomination are also eligible. The nominee must have a completed nomination form, at least one letter of support from another faculty member at ETSU, and a letter of support from his/her dean.
The teaching considered may be either undergraduate, graduate or both.
Documentation should focus on the effectiveness of instruction and multiple sources of evidence.
Areas of documentation may include such things as:
- Quality of presentation in classroom or field
- Command of subject matter
- Development and use of innovative methods
- Student's achievement
- Ability to motivate students
- Peer evaluation
- Student evaluation
- Current and professional development
- Advising, tutoring, direction of theses and dissertations, and other forms of assisting students
- Textbooks or other published instructional materials indicative of teaching effectiveness
- Design or revision of courses, curricula, and materials
- Management of instructional programs or components
Unless they are related to teaching effectiveness or pedagogy, copies of the nominee’s publications should not be included.
Faculty Research/Scholarship/Creative Activity Award Criteria
The nominee must be a full-time faculty member as defined in Section 2 of the Faculty Handbook in service for at least three (3) full years at ETSU. Faculty who have achieved emeritus status no more than one year prior to the nomination are also eligible. The work for which the award is given must result in publication(s) or in comparable accomplishment(s) in the arts and will only be considered if it was accomplished while serving as a faculty member at ETSU.
The nominee must have a completed nomination form, at least one letter of support from another faculty member at ETSU, and a letter of support from his/her Dean.
Documentation for this award should include:
- A brief description (approximately 1 page) of the research/scholarship/creative activity in non-technical language
- Full bibliographic information for publications, presentations, exhibitions, or creative activity that resulted from the work
- If applicable, copies of all publications stemming from ETSU that apply to the work
- Information for all grants and contracts that apply to the work
- If available, communications from experts in the field who have reviewed the work
Faculty Service Award Criteria
The award will be given for distinguished service accomplishments achieved during a substantial period prior to the award.
The nominee must be a full-time faculty member as defined in Section 2 of the Faculty Handbook in service for at least three (3) full years at ETSU, and only service while employed at ETSU will be considered in making this award. Faculty who have achieved emeritus status no more than one year prior to the nomination are also eligible. The nominee must have a completed nomination form, at least one letter of support from another faculty member at ETSU, and a letter of support from his/her Dean.
The service considered may have been provided to a department, the college, the institution, professional organizations, community organizations, the general public, or a combination of these.
Service for which the faculty member received compensation will not be considered in making this award. (Expenses and modest honoraria are not considered compensation.)
Documentation should focus on the nature of the faculty member's contribution, its quality, its impact, its relation to the general welfare of the university, and its effect on the university community. The types of documentation for this award are expected to vary greatly, but they must adhere to the criteria in regards to the amount of documentation allowed.
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Faculty Awards Nomination Form