USM ANNUAL FACULTY AWARDS PROGRAM

The awards program is designed to recognize and appreciate the many exceptional efforts of USM faculty members. It is an opportunity to share accomplishments widely, and build community through the celebration of those contributions. The awards program recognizes that there are a number of distinct arenas, in which faculty contributions can enhance the university. These categories are teaching, scholarship, university service, and community service. The program is designed to encourage and value contributions in each of those categories. Importantly, the monetary aspect of the awards will lead to direct enhancement of the university because the awards are placed in broadly defined professional development accounts for each recipient, leading to enhanced professional growth opportunities.

A. The Faculty Senate, in cooperation with the Provost, has developed this document, which contains an overview of the structure, criteria, and process for the Awards Program.

B. Some responsibility for this program will be delegated to each academic unit.

C. A Faculty Senate Standing Committee called the Faculty Awards Committee (FAC) will be created to provide implementation support and ongoing leadership for this program. (See next section for definition of this committee)

The Faculty Awards Committee (FAC) will have a variety of responsibilities.

A. During implementation the FAC will:

1. Work with each academic unit (defined in next section) to clarify Senate expectations regarding the program;
2. Will approve unit level written criteria and process;
3. Will work with units to resolve unit level implementation problems.

B. On an ongoing basis, the FAC will:

1. Review program effectiveness on an annual basis and make recommendations to the full Senate.
2. Interpret Senate expectations to the academic units and approve changes to criteria and procedure developed at the unit level.
3. Provide leadership and planning for the annual recognition dinner.

Academic units, for the purposes of the Faculty Awards program, are defined as:

1. Any school or college as an entity, with the exception of CAS.
2. CAS is composed of 4 units, as currently defined by the college.
3. The Public Policy and Management program is also counted as a unit.

(Proposed revision: omit item 3)

A. The units are expected to develop criteria and procedures for areas that are left undefined by this Faculty Senate document. They must then submit these written documents to the FAC for approval.

B. The faculty in each unit are responsible for establishing and managing their awards selection.

C. The faculty within a unit elect an awards committee whose terms are staggered. No faculty member can serve more than 3 consecutive years.

D. The faculty within a unit vote on which category(s) of awards will be given that year, within the constraints of the Faculty Senate policies on distribution by category.

E. Within the review and selection process established by the Senate and elaborated at the unit level, the committee selects the unit’s award recipients.

F. No faculty member can be self nominated for an award.

A. The categories are:

1. Teaching: Contributions to the development and delivery of effective teaching and learning experiences.

2. Scholarship: This is defined at the unit or subunit level.

3. University Service: Service should be viewed much more than passive participation in a variety of committees. Such efforts as a willingness to do much of the real work within a service experience, contributing working papers, doing research that contributes to the service effort, and serving in leadership roles should weigh heavily in assessing this category. Paid service should be valued much less than voluntary contributions to the service needs of USM.

4. Community Service: Although any contributions we as individuals make to the larger community are laudable, this category of recognition is limited to voluntary, unpaid community service that directly connects to one’s profession, or to other aspects of the faculty member’s involvement at USM.

B. The number of awards are determined as follows:

1. The goal is to allocate an award to each unit for each 15 full time faculty within the unit, as well as an additional award for a major fraction of 15 faculty (8 or more).

2. Each unit is given a minimum of one award per year.

C. The nature of the awards is defined as follows:

1. The awards are intended to incorporate both an honor/recognition aspect and a financial/developmental one.

2. The honor is in part receiving the award, but it also includes the major emphasis for this awards program within the faculty recognition dinner, to be held near the end of each Spring semester.

3. The financial award will be in the form of money dedicated to a faculty development account established for each award recipient. Among the features of this account are that:

a. It will be based on a very broad definition of professional development. This definition shall supersede the unit’s definition for the purposes of these accounts.

b. The account shall have a two year time limit for its use.

c. The award must not be used to explicitly or implicitly penalize its recipient regarding opportunities for other development funds available at any level of the university.

D. The award amount will initially be $650 per recipient. However, it is the goal of both the Senate and the Provost to reach the level of $1000 awards as soon in the future as possible.

(Proposed addition:
E. The management of the individual award accounts will be done by the Office of Graduate Affairs or any other designee of the Provost.)

A. The awards must be given strictly on the basis of merit.

B. Distribution of the awards must be balanced among the categories to the extent that, within any span of 8 awards within a unit:

1. All four categories have been given within that time.

2. No category has been awarded more than 3 times.

C. In assessing a faculty member’s standing for an award in a particular category, all contributions made within that category during the faculty member’s time at USM are included. However, once a faculty member receives an award in a particular category, any future consideration in that same category can only include contributions made during the time since last receiving that award.

D. The Senate reserves the right to approve policy and procedure used in this program by individual units, and the units are responsible for submitting proposed policy and procedures to the FAC for approval.

E. The Senate accepts oversight authority and responsibility for the Faculty Awards Program.