2007 – 2008
ANNUAL REPORT
FACULTY SENATE
STUDENT AND FACULTY HONORS COMMITTEE
I. Committee Membership
The following members comprised the 2007– 2008 Faculty Senate Student and
Faculty Honors Committee:
Linda Gottfredson, College of Human Services, Education, and
Public Policy (Chair)
Kirsten Andrews, Graduate Student Representative
Mohsen Badiey, College of Marine and Earth Studies
Jan Bibik, College of Health, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences
Michael Gilbert, Office of the Vice President, Student Life
Rhonda Aull
Hyde, College of Agriculture
and Natural Resources
Heidi Kaufman, College of Arts and Sciences
Katharine Kerrane, University Honors Program
Zachary Schafer, Undergraduate Student Representative
Mark Serva, College of Business and Economics
Ismat Shah, College of Engineering
Jonathan Urick, Undergraduate Student Representative
II. Technology Assistance for Committee and Faculty Senate
Need
The Committee has three major recurring
tasks: to establish criteria for and select recipients of (1) the Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Advising
and Mentoring Awards and (2) the Francis Alison Faculty Award, as well as (3)
set criteria and approve new awards for inclusion in the University Honors Day
Program booklet. Since 2000, to increase transparency, outreach, and efficiency,
the Committee has created a public website describing all awards, criteria, and
committee procedures, online forms for submitting UDSIS-authenticated
nominations for the Excellence Awards, procedures for electronic solicitation
of nominations from all UD students and staff, a database system for processing
those nominations, a secure website for viewing and archiving nominations and
other confidential tasks, electronic application forms for including new awards
in the Honors Day Program, and more. The result has been to dramatically
increase the quantity, quality, and variety of nominations for all awards, improve
the visibility and transparency of committee procedures, and augment
recognition for recipients of these prestigious UD awards.
These activities are all highly technology dependent and
also require electronic solicitation and sharing of data with various administrative
support units throughout the year. As the technological complexity of the
Committee’s tasks increased, it became harder and eventually impossible to
recruit new chairs. The system also became vulnerable to breakdown at critical
moments. Begging and borrowing assistance would no long suffice.
Request for a
Faculty Senate CITA
Urged on by technologically savvy colleagues, members
of the Committee assisted the Faculty Senate in developing a request to the
Provost for a new CITA, who would assist the Faculty Senate and this Committee
in particular. The Committee (and especially its Chair) is thrilled to report
that the request was approved, and the new CITA (Brenda Misko) and her
supervisor (Eric Cantrell) began working with the Committee in the Spring. They will redesign, simplify, improve, implement,
and manage the technological aspects of the Committee’s Excellence Awards
nomination system and website. That work has begun and the new database system
will be in place for the next cycle of nominations.
III. Honors Day Program Booklet
Clarity and efficiency in application
procedures
The Committee clarified and posted all criteria on its website, and developed an electronic application form. Publications now notifies applicants that they need to submit requests on our form which, if approved, can be copied directly to Publications. The form allows for faster turnaround of applications and better coordination among applicants, the Committee, and Publications.
Awards
approved for inclusion
1.
College of Health
Sciences
·
Katherine
L. Esterly Nursing Education Scholarship
2.
College of Engineering
· Wayne Westerman Entrepreneurial Scholarship Award
3.
College of Arts
and Science
· Gladys and Harry David Zutz Awards – approved adding a second award
· Bryce Hach Scientific Foundation Scholarship Awards
· Outstanding Senior Award (Philosophy)
· Robert W. Hancock Award
· C. Richard Quade Award
4.
College of Human
Services, Education, and Public Policy
· David Hollowell Endowed Scholarship
· Judy Cohen Schwartz Scholarship
5.
College of Business
and Economics
·
Delaware Innovation Fund Entrepreneurial
Scholarship Award - Approved
V. Possible Revision or Addition
of New Excellence Awards
Undergraduate Academic Advising Award
The award was renamed to “Advising and
Mentoring” to recognize the importance of mentoring undergraduates,
especially because much advising is not done by assigned advisors.
Advising and Mentoring by Professional Staff
The call for nominations generated numerous inquiries to the chair about
why particular individuals or classes of individuals were not eligible for the
Excellence in Advising and Mentoring Award. The issue is this. Only faculty are eligible for the Excellence Awards, which were
established for and are administered by faculty. However, much undergraduate
advising is now done by professional staff, and admirers naturally want to
honor them as well. The chair answered all inquiries and invited suggestions.
The Committee entertained but rejected the suggestion that professionals be
eligible for existing awards (which would require intervention by the Senate)
or that it set up a separate award. Neither is feasible or within the
Committee’s purview. We will, however, take the question to the Administration
and the Student Government Association for their consideration: might they want
to create a means of honoring excellent advising by professionals?
Lifetime Limit on Excellence Awards
The Committee entertained and rejected the suggestion that it limit the
number of times an individual may receive an Excellence Award. Faculty who
continue to inspire students after decades of teaching or advising ought not be excluded from further recognition.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The Committee entertained and rejected the suggestion that it establish a
Lifetime Achievement Award. If there is no limit on times received, there is no
reason to establish an entirely new award—and good reasons not to.
VI. Administration of Excellence Awards
Coordination with Public Relations
Much of the Committee’s work involves communicating with the UD community
in some way, whether to solicit nominations or publicize the winners. With VP
(and member) Michael Gilbert’s help, we have begun to coordinate more closely
with John Brennan, of Public Relations. Fruits of that coordination this year
included John’s assistance in sending out our solicitations and reminders to
nominate (to all UD students and staff), additional publicity (an advertisement
in The Review and a beautiful poster which was posted in all residence halls),
and more.
Generating More Alumni Nominations
There have been two chronic problems: (1) difficulty contacting alums and
(2) alums’ difficulty accessing our nomination forms. Concerning the first
problem: UD alums do not get UD email accounts, nor has UD accumulated contact
information for many alums. That is, there has been no
UD-wide system of connecting with alums that we could tap into. The new
administration plans to establish closer ties with alums. Until that time, the Messenger, UD’s alumni magazine, will
publicize the winners and the opportunity to nominate in its Winter
issue. The assistant director of Alumni Relations also suggested that we
provide that office information on making nominations early in the calendar
year so it can be one of the rotating features on their website. The Committee
will continue to discuss other potential points of contact with alumni,
previous suggestions including inserting notices in announcements for
Homecoming or to new grads.
On the second problem: All nominators need a UD userid
and password to gain access to the nomination forms. We ascertained that all
alums can get them over the phone within minutes—at least in theory. We have
included that information at the entry point to our forms. Unfortunately, the
process worked for some alums but not others, for
reasons unknown. We will continue to pursue that matter.
Generating More Student Nominations
Student Committee members made the following suggestions for increasing
the number of future nominations: (1) use
technology as much as possible (e.g., FaceBook), (2) increase
the publicity of the award by running stories of the winners in The Review in February, rotating
pictures of winners on UD’s home page, putting ads in The Review, (3) hold a “meet and greet” with students to meet the winners,
and (4) use honor groups and societies, whose members may be more likely to submit
nominations.
Number of Nominations Received
The final number of submitted nominations was as follows. Note: For
everyone nominated in the current year, we add in the nominations they received
the year before.
|
|
# Nominees in 2008 |
# Nominations they received in 2008 |
# Nominations they had received in 2007 |
Total number reviewed for 2008 nominees |
|
Excellence in Teaching (faculty & graduate student) |
252 |
407 |
>157 |
564 |
|
Excellence in Advising |
81 |
95 |
>2 |
97 |
|
Note: System problems this year preclude a count of 2008 nominees’
nominations in 2007 |
||||
VI. Recipients of
Excellence Awards
Excellence in Teaching, Faculty ($5,000
award)
Kenneth C Haas, Criminal Justice
Carolee A Polek, Nursing
Patricia Sloane-White, Anthropology
Julie K Waterhouse, Nursing
Excellence in Teaching, Graduate
Students ($1,500 award)
Michael A Anderson, Education
Stela K Stefanova, Economics
Excellence in Undergraduate Academic
Advising and Mentoring ($2,500 award)
Michell Provost-Craig, Health, Nutrition & Exercise Sciences
VII. Francis Alison Faculty Award
Clarified Submission Guidelines
for Dossiers
The Committee continued to revise its submission form (“cover sheet”) to
more clearly communicate to deans and chairs the kind and format of evidence
the Committee requires. A recent clarification was that outside letters should
communicate the candidates’ contributions in terms that non-experts can
appreciate. Lacking that, it is hard for Committee members to properly compare
contributions from different fields. In requiring the same sorts of evidence in
the same format, the cover sheet both communicates the criteria for the award
and levels the playing field for candidates. The quality of dossiers for worthy
candidates has improved considerably as a result.
Created Evaluation Rubric
The
Committee created an evaluation form (“rubric”) for member use in reviewing the
dossiers. It conforms to the scholarship and teaching criteria spelled out on
our website. The rubric helps Committee members be “on the same page” and implement
the criteria when evaluating dossiers. It will also serve to keep evaluation
criteria and procedures consistent from one year to the next.
Review of Submissions
The Committee evaluated the dossiers of four candidates and selected
____, of____, as the 2008 recipient of the Francis Alison Award.
VIII. Meeting Dates and Agenda Items for the 2008-2009
Year
Meeting dates
Meeting dates for the 2008-2009 term will be as
follows:
Sept 19
Oct 10
Nov 7
Dec 5
Jan 9
Feb 13
Mar 13 & 20
Apr 17
May 8
Meetings will be on Friday mornings from
8:45-10:00, with the exception of the second March meeting and the April
meeting, which will begin at 8:00.
Agenda Items
The following items should be on the agenda for the 2008–2009 year. These items are carryover items from the
current year:
1. Trimming the Honors Day Program Booklet
2. Soliciting more Excellence nominations from alumni
3. Soliciting more Excellence
nominations from matriculated students
4. Implementing the new
technology
IX. Committee Website
http://www.udel.edu/teachingawards