Faculty Awards for Academic Outreach

The College of Arts and Sciences is soliciting nominations for the Faculty Awards for Academic Outreach, recognizing excellence in academic outreach during the past academic year by faculty in the departments and programs of the college. Faculty awards for academic outreach will be presented by the dean at the annual Faculty Awards Dinner.

Purpose

The Academic Outreach Awards recognize extraordinary contributions of faculty to the public that occur as an outgrowth of academic pursuits and are related to the university’s academic mission. The faculty awards are based on demonstrated outstanding contributions to the public stemming from their academic expertise.

Academic Outreach

Academic outreach is defined as integrated scholarship which engages the institution’s academic missions of research, creativity, teaching, and service with the community at large. It involves the university’s faculty and students employing their academic expertise to engage the community in reciprocal, collaborative relationships to improve the quality of life for citizens. In turn, the relationships with the community inform the scholarship and learning of faculty and students and supports university initiatives designed to enhance diversity and intercultural awareness.

Academic outreach cuts across the institutional mission; therefore, faculty may be nominated for excellence in academic outreach through outreach teaching (including courses with a service learning component), outreach research and creative activity, or outreach service.

Outreach teaching extends the university’s instructional capacity to provide learning opportunities to public audiences through workshops, public lectures, educational presentations to P-12 teachers and students, designing/developing educational exhibits, and other educational activities. Such teaching might employ innovative uses of information technologies to make university resources accessible to those at a distance through on-line courses or the design of educational websites.

Faculty may also perform outreach teaching by extending their classroom beyond the campus to engage their students in service learning. Through service learning, faculty design their course to enable their students to relate the academic content of their coursework to the real world by providing a needed service to the community as they apply and test their learning. Both service learning and student voluntary community service involve student engagement with the community; however, service learning differs from community service in that service learning experiences occur in the context of courses which are part of the approved curriculum and involve faculty and their students in a thoughtfully designed learning experience with defined learning and experiential goals as part of the course requirements.

Outreach research and creative activity involves extending faculty research and creative endeavors to serve the public at large. This goal may be accomplished through a variety of research activities: basic discovery research, applied or action research, original performances, and creative applied policy. Outreach research is often seen as an externally focused activity that brings together faculty and community collaborators to address real world problems and issues. Such collaboration, however, is only one of the ways in which outreach research can take place. Basic research and creative activity may also develop into outreach research, for their results may eventually be transmitted to an external audience or it may open a line of inquiry that benefits the public. Indeed, the best examples of outreach research and creative activities are those that engage faculty in advancing knowledge through the pursuit of their scholarly interests while simultaneously addressing community problems and issues, thereby benefiting the scholar, the discipline, the university, and society.

Outreach service entails employing faculty knowledge and professional expertise to serve society through application of expertise in direct service, consultation with public, private, and civic institutions of all kinds, and other activities which apply faculty knowledge to the benefit of the community. Through outreach service, the intellectual resources of the university’s faculty are applied to helping seek solutions to community problems and issues. As faculty knowledge provides insights which inform citizens of choices, provide needed services, and inform public decisions, faculty enhance the quality of life of the citizens in the communities served by the university.

Outreach service does not include:

• institutional service (e.g., service on university committees),
• professional service (e.g., service to various professional and learned societies), or
• community  service (e.g., charitable service outside the faculty member’s academic expertise).

Rather, outreach service is defined more specifically as extending to the community faculty’s disciplinary expertise acquired through research, scholarship, and creative activity.

Eligibility

All full-time tenured and tenure track faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences are eligible forthis award. Adjunct faculty, instructors, and graduate teaching assistants are ineligible. Previous award recipients are ineligible for five years following their receipt of the award. The awards are intended to honor faculty who have exceeded normal expectations in their academic outreach activities and whose work has addressed a real community need through academic outreach.

Nominations of Faculty

Nominations will be solicited from department heads or directors. Please complete this nomination form. The letter of nomination should be limited to two typed, double-spaced pages. The letter should indicate whether the nominee is being nominated for outreach teaching, outreach research and creative activity or outreach service and should address the nature and quality of the academic outreach performed by the nominated individual and why it represents an extraordinary accomplishment that exceeds normal expectations for faculty. A copy of the faculty member’s current curriculum vitae should be attached to the letter of nomination. Nominators are asked not to include additional materials because they will NOT be considered.

Nominations should be submitted to Dean Theresa Lee no later than December 12 at 5:00 p.m.

Recipients

Year	Recipient	Department
2021	Research: Monica Papes Service: Helene Sinnreich Teaching: Millie Gimmel	Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Religious Studies MFLL
2020	Research: Kimberly S. Sheldon Research: Liem T. Tran Service: Paul Armsworth Service: Nicole Eggers Teaching: Jessica M. Budke Teaching: Katy L. Chiles	Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Geography Ecology & Evolutionary Biology History Ecology & Evolutionary Biology English
2019	Teaching: Charlie Kwit Service: Patrick Grzanka Research: Annette Engel	History Psychology EPS
2018	Barry D. Bruce Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius Erin Darby	BCMB History Religious Studies
2017	Karen Lloyd Julie Reed Henri Grissino-Mayer	Microbiology History Geography
2016	Daniel Feller	History
2015	Joe Miles	Psychology
2014	B. Eugene Wofford Lawrence Elledge Gilya Schmidt	Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Psychology Religious Studies
2013	Nikolay Brodskiy Jon Levin	Math Physics and Astronomy
2012	Kristina Gordon Marilyn Kallet Christina Shepardson	Psychology English Religious Studies
2011	Marcia Goldenstein Mike McKinney	Art Earth & Planetary Sciences
2010	Stuart Elston Larry Taylor	Physics & Astronomy Earth & Planetary Sciences
2009	Jeffrey Kovac Michael Lofaro	Chemistry English
2008	Daniel Feller Sally Horn Norman Magden Daniel Roberts	History Geography Art Biochemistry & Cellular Molecular Biology
2007	Marvelene Moore Suzanne Lenhart	Music Mathematics
2006	Don Hough Bob Bast	Music History
2005	Stefanie Ohnesorg Susan Riechert	Modern Foreign Languages & Literatures Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
2004	Christopher P. Craig William Wade III	Classics Mathematics
2003	Robert Cunningham Blake Robison	Political Science Theatre
2002	Bruce Wheeler Rosalind Gwynne	History Religious Studies
2001	Lorri Glover Jan Simek	History Anthropology
2000	Jesse Poore Arthur Echternacht	Computer Science Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
1999	Gordon Burghardt Gary McCracken	Psychology Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
1998	Charles Faulkner Anne McIntyre	Anthropology Psychology
1997	Thomas Hood Beth Mullin	Sociology Botany
1996	Susan Martin James Black	Classics Sociology
1995	John Nolt Jeffrey Mellor	Philosophy Modern Foreign Languages & Literatures
1994	Marilyn Kallet Susan Riechert	English Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
1993	William Lyons Sheldon Cohen	Art Earth & Planetary Sciences
1992	Sidney Jumper Kathleen Lawler	Geography Psychology
1991	Don Byerly Gerald Vaughan	Geology Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
1990	Robert Gorman Edward Clebsch	Political Science Botany