Coles College Faculty Award

The Distinguished Professor Award recognizes a faculty member with a long tenure who has demonstrated a sustained record of excellence and distinction in teaching, scholarship, and service.

Eligibility for the Distinguished Professor Award

• Coles College full-time regular faculty member holding the rank of full professor, be tenured, and have completed at least ten consecutive years as a full-time member of the KSU faculty at the time of her/his nomination.
• Recipients in the past five years of the Distinguished Professor Award are not eligible.

Criteria for the Distinguished Professor Award

The candidate must show demonstrated distinguished achievement in teaching, scholarship, and service, both separately and in an integrative manner, and must have been awarded formal and documented recognition in his or her area of academic specialization on a national or international level. Although extraordinary performance in only one of these three areas may be present, no nominee will be selected who has not also demonstrated distinguished performance in the other two areas.

Teaching:
Documentation might include student and peer evaluations of classroom teaching, peer evaluation of instructional materials, documented evidence of innovative curriculum, methods, and technologies, and both KSU and external recognitions for outstanding teaching (e.g., awards, invitations to conduct workshops or make presentations). Documentation should preferably include internal and external peer-reviewed presentations or publications on innovative teaching.

Scholarship:
Applicants should have developed a substantial body of scholarship in their area of academic specialization. A nominee's scholarship may be collaborative, but his or her contribution must be clear and substantial. The scholarship may include refereed and invited publications, grants for the support of scholarship, invited and contributed presentations, exhibitions of creative work, inventions and patents, published software, etc. Further, the impact of the scholarship at a national or international level must be documented (e.g., awards, invited conference presentations or exhibitions, evidence of citations of and references to the nominee's work by others).

Service:
Service must evidence breadth beyond simply campus-based service. Service might include some combination of long-term institutional contributions and leadership at the departmental, college, and university-wide levels as well as service at the national or international level (e.g., holding offices in professional organizations, editing national and/or international journals, reviewing for professional journals, participation on committees in professional organizations, or volunteer work directly related to one's professional expertise). Nominees should document the impact and innovations of service at the institutional and national or international level (e.g., new policies or procedures adopted by a professional organization; new programs such as conferences or workshops, including evidence of their success).

Integration of Teaching, Research, and Service:
The applicant must address the innovative ways that he or she integrates teaching, scholarship, and service into his or her overall performance as a distinguished professor at the senior rank. Specific examples that illustrate such integration should be included (e.g., publications, materials that are developed and used for scholarship, teaching, and service). For example, a nominee may have adapted and incorporated information originally developed through his or her scholarship into both classroom teaching (e.g., an instructional module) and service (e.g., presentations to community or professional groups, consultation).

Back to Top

 The Distinguished Scholarship Award recognizes a faculty member who illustrates sustained excellence in performance as evidenced by the level of activity in and commitment to scholarship and/or creative activity; the quality of scholarship and/or creative activities; and the strength and depth of expertise.

Eligibility for the Distinguished Scholarship Award

• Coles College full-time regular faculty member (lecturer, tenure-track, or tenured) with at least 5 years of record as a full-time faculty member at KSU.
• Recipients in the past five years of the Distinguished Scholarship Award are not eligible.

Criteria for the Distinguished Scholarship Award

• Consistent excellent performance in scholarship and/or creative activity, such as:
• peer-reviewed publications
• presentations
• grants, contracts
• patents, licenses
• software, instructional tools, electronic media
• Evidence of impact and significance of scholarly and/or creative work, such as:
• quality
• citations, disseminations, and adoptions by others
• strength and depth of expertise
• Evidence of sustained leadership and/or innovation, such as:
• mentoring and sharing expertise with faculty and/or students
• holding positions that recognize scholarship and/or creative activity
• developing new areas of scholarship and creativity

Back to Top

The Distinguished Collaboration Award recognizes a faculty’s excellent collaboration with Coles College faculty or faculty from other colleges of KSU.

Eligibility for the Distinguished Collaboration Award

• Any Coles College full-time regular faculty member (lecturer, tenure-track, or tenured).
• Recipients in the past five years of the Distinguished Collaboration Award are not eligible.

Criteria for the Distinguished Collaboration Award

• The applicant must identify ways they have collaborated via teaching, service, or scholarly activities with Coles College faculty or colleagues from other colleges that help promote KSU’s mission.
• Only Information for the last 5 years should be included.
• A joint application should be submitted if it features a single project involving multiple collaborators within the Coles College. 
• The application should include specific example(s) with a description of the collaboration project, names, titles, college and role of collaborators, outcome(s) (for teaching- courses offered, enrollment, course evaluation, etc.; for service- delivery, impact etc.; for scholarly activities- publications, presentations, grants, etc.).

Back to Top

1. Applicants are to submit online a document that specifies how they qualify for the award. The submission must meet the following guidelines or it will be automatically rejected:
   1. ALL Applicants are limited to five pages, single-sided
   2. Times New Roman, 12-point font
   3. One-inch margins at the top, bottom, and sides
   4. Double spacing
   5. DEADLINE: December 13, 2024
2. Applications will be forwarded to the appropriate DEPARTMENT CHAIR/ DIRECTOR for review and input.
3. Applications will then be submitted to the COLES FACULTY COMMITTEE  (CFC) which will evaluate the applications and submit one applicant per Coles Faculty Award to the DEAN for the final determination of winners.
4. Award recipients will be announced by the Coles Dean by January 15, 2025. If an award applicant does not receive this notification from the Dean, he/she should assume that he/she did not win this year and is encouraged to consider applying again in the future.
5. Selected Awardees will rewrite applications according to the guidelines for the KSU Faculty Awards administered by CETL. The revised applications will be due by January 30, 2025.
6. The Coles Dean will submit updated applications for the KSU Faculty Awards.