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Provost's Excellence Awards for Professional Track Faculty

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Award Description

In the Fall of 2015, the Provost announced the inauguration of annual Excellence Awards for Professional Track (PTK) Faculty. Awardees receive a certificate of award  from the Provost and $1,000 in recognition of consistently excellent contributions in one of the three core areas of academic activity:

  • Excellence in Teaching
  • Excellence in Research
  • Excellence in Service

Click here to make a nomination. Click here to see a list of awardees.

Criteria

Nominations are limited to faculty who are neither tenured nor eligible for tenure and who have been appointed as full-time faculty at UMD for at least five years. Part-time faculty are eligible when their appointment history reaches the equivalent of five years of full-time service.

Area of Academic Activity

Although many PTK faculty contribute in more than one dimension of academic activity, the majority of a nominee's contracted duties will usually determine the specific award for which the nomination is being made. Supporting letters may elaborate on how the nominee's contributions extend beyond the nominated area, but the contribution in that area should be worthy of recognition in its own right.

Note that Service should be understood broadly, i.e. service can be rendered to the discipline, to the campus community, or to the department/unit. For example, PTK faculty who serve as undergraduate program directors or course coordinators should be nominated for the Service award rather than teaching because their work serves the instructional mission. Similarly, PTK faculty who primarily manage research contracts or coordinate proposal writing efforts would be nominated for the Service award given that their work serves the research mission.

Deadlines

  • Monday, August 31, 2026: Nominations open 
  • Friday, October 2, 2026: Nominations close
  • Friday, November 13, 2026: Final nomination packets due

Nomination Process

Nominations must be submitted by the PTK faculty member's unit head or immediate supervisor. Click here to use the online form for entering the names of nominee and nominator, and the award category. The nomination period is August 31, 2026 through October 2, 2026.

The deadline for submitting full nomination materials is Friday, November 13, 2026.

Please note that nominations that do not meet the required criteria or include all required materials will be returned to the Unit.

Nomination Materials

Nomination materials should be combined into a single, searchable, PDF document to be uploaded to the APA website by the nominator or an assistant, and shall consist of:

  1. Letter of Support: from the nominator who should be the unit head or immediate supervisor, explicitly indicating for which of the three Excellence Awards the nomination is made,
  2. Nominee's CV 
  3. Two additional letters of support: it is recommended that at least one of the two additional letters come from someone outside the nominee’s home unit, either from another unit on campus or an external organization or institution. 
  4. Course Experience Surveys: in the standard format using IRPA Tableau for those being nominated for the Excellence in Teaching award

Questions about the awards or the nomination and review process should be directed to the Office of Faculty Affairs, faculty@umd.edu.