Provost's Excellence Awards for Professional Track Faculty

In the Fall of 2015, the Provost announced the inauguration of annual Excellence Awards for Professional Track (PTK) Faculty. Winners receive a letter of recognition from the Provost and a $1,000 award 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.

Who is eligible ?

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 effort shall determine the specific award for which the nomination is being made. Supporting letters can elaborate on how the nominee's contributions extend beyond the primary area of effort, but the contribution in the primary 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.

Nomination Materials

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 September 10 through October 15 of the current year.

The deadline for submitting full nomination materials is November 15. 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:

• a letter of support from the nominator, explicitly indicating for which of the three Excellence Awards the nomination is made,
• the nominee's CV, and
• 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). 

Selection Process

Winners for the inaugural year were selected by a panel of instructional and research faculty who were serving in primarily administrative appointments. After the inaugural year, winners are selected by the previous year's winners.

Questions about the awards, or the nomination and review process, should be directed to the Office of Faculty Affairs, 301-405-6803.