Call for Nominations: President’s Excellence Awards

September 17, 2018

Dear Colleagues,

One of the great privileges of our jobs is recognizing your exceptional work in advancing the University of Nebraska’s missions of teaching, research and service. Great faculty are the lifeblood of any university, and we’re fortunate to have some of the very best serving across our campuses.

Each year the University of Nebraska presents up to six faculty members and one department or unit with the President’s Excellence Awards, our most prestigious honors for success in the classroom, laboratory and community. This year we’re proud to announce the addition of a new award, the Inclusive Excellence Collaboration Award, that recognizes efforts that move the University toward inclusive excellence. The ability to transform lives through teaching, research, service and innovation requires diverse backgrounds and perspectives and an inclusive campus environment. This award will honor significant and sustained efforts in diversity and inclusion between two or more University of Nebraska academic and/or administrative units or campuses.

“The ability to transform lives through teaching, research, service and innovation requires diverse backgrounds and perspectives and an inclusive campus environment.”

Nominations are being accepted now for these university-wide awards. We encourage you to take this opportunity to nominate a colleague, department or unit whose work merits public recognition for the significant impact it has had on students, the university and the state.

Faculty winners are awarded $10,000 each, a presidential medallion and an engraved plaque. The departmental winner receives $25,000 to support its instructional mission. The Inclusive Excellence Collaboration award recipients receive $25,000 to support diversity, access and inclusion efforts on campus. All winners, who are chosen by panels of their peers, are honored at a luncheon in the spring hosted by the two of us and attended by senior leaders and colleagues from across the university.

Nomination criteria, information on past winners, and instructions are all available on our awards webpage.

Brief descriptions of the awards and their nomination deadlines follow.

• 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 November 1, 2018.
• Inclusive Excellence Collaboration (IECA) Award: Recognizes sustained, outstanding contributions in diversity and inclusion between two or more University of Nebraska academic and/or administrative units or campuses that move the university system toward inclusive excellence. Nominations due November 1, 2018.
• Outstanding Research and Creative Activity (ORCA) Award: Recognizes individual faculty members for outstanding research or creative activity of national or international significance. Nominations due November 15, 2018.
• 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 November 1, 2018.
• 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 November 1, 2018.

Thank you for joining with us to recognize excellence at the University of Nebraska. We are honored to work among such talented colleagues.

Sincerely,

Hank Bounds, Ph.D.
President, University of Nebraska

Susan M. Fritz, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President and Provost, University of Nebraska