Purpose of the Award
This excellence award serves the following purposes:
- To recognize faculty who have made outstanding contributions to their scholarly field at the mid-career stage.
- To highlight the University’s commitment to excellence in research, scholarship and creative endeavors.
Nature and Number of Awards
Two awards will be made each year.
The award recipients will receive $5,000 each. In addition, their picture will be displayed in Morris Library for five years and a brick with their name will be placed in Mentor’s Circle. Recipients will be asked to give a campus lecture on their scholarship. Funds for the awards are provided by the Research Office.
Criteria of Excellence
The Mid-Career Faculty Excellence in Scholarship awards are given each year to two mid-career faculty members in recognition of exemplary scholarship and creative endeavors that represent outstanding contributions to their scholarly field, and who have demonstrated leadership in this respect. Nominees who demonstrate the following qualities as documented in their nomination materials will be considered:
- Documented evidence of outstanding research/scholarship/creative accomplishments while at the University of Delaware.
- Demonstrated impact of their work on their discipline.
- Significant national and international recognition.
- Record of engaging University of Delaware students, including members of
under-represented groups, in their scholarly activities.
Rules of Eligibility for the Award
- Nominees must be full-time, tenured, faculty members.
- Nominees must be an associate professor with tenure.
- Nominees must be less than 10 years from their promotion to associate professor with tenure by the nomination deadline date.
- Nominees must have at least 6 years of service at the University by the nomination deadline date.
- Only one faculty member may be nominated from each department/school.
- Self-nominations are not allowed.
- Former awardees are ineligible.
Who Can Nominate
While nominations may be submitted by any member of the faculty at the University, should more than one faculty member from a department/school be nominated, the department/school must decide which nomination will go forward.
Nomination Materials
A typical nomination package will consist of the following elements:
- The candidate’s curriculum vitae.
- A nominating letter of no more than 3 pages in length. The letter of nomination should include a narrative presenting a description of the nominee’s qualifications for consideration, the significance of his or her scholarship, an explanation of its originality and impact in its field both nationally and internationally, and the contributions of the nominee to the scholarly mission of the University.
- Up to two additional letters of support, which clearly indicate the impact of the candidate’s scholarly contributions to the field. At least one of these letters should come from experts outside of the University of Delaware who are independent of the nominee (e.g., they should not be their students or mentors) and should evaluate the nominee’s contribution to, and impact upon, their field of study.
- A letter of support from the nominee’s department chair, if not included among the letters above.
- Exemplars of the candidate’s work– up to three peer-reviewed publications, one book or monograph, or other forms of creative work.
- The nomination packet will be submitted in electronic form.
Selection Procedures
Awardees are selected by the Faculty Senate’s Committee on Student and Faculty Honors based on the criteria listed.
Deadline for Submissions: September 30.
Please email the submission packet to Karen Holden at krholden@udel.edu. Please title the email “Faculty Excellence in Research Award Submission.”