DISTINGUISHED FACULTY FELLOWSHIPS 2008

Deans are invited to nominate members of their faculty for Distinguished Faculty Fellowships. These Fellowships have been created to recognize and provide support for members of the faculty whose continuing attainments and current activities in scholarship, research, or in the fine and performing arts, are nationally distinguished. The Fellowships have a dual purpose: not only to recognize past and continuing distinguished achievements, but also to support current scholarly activity of an exceptional character. Affirmative action efforts should be made in the selection of these Fellows, as in other University appointment and selection processes. 

In addition to the honor and recognition associated with these Fellowships, each Fellow will receive an award of $6,500 to be used for support of his/her scholarly endeavors. (The permissible uses of the $6,500 are broadly defined within University guidelines.) 

Five Fellowships will be available next year: two (2) Charles Gershenson Fellowships, which are part of the benefaction to the University by the late Charles Gershenson who formerly served on the Board of Governors, and three (3) Board of Governors Fellowships derived from revenues specially available to the Board. The term of each Fellowship is two years, and the $6,500 award will be renewed in the second year of the Fellowship if funds continue to be available. 

Deans are invited to submit nominations for these Fellowships up to the number specified below for the respective schools and colleges:  

• Liberal Arts and Science:  9;

• School of Medicine: 5

• Education and Engineering: 3 each;

• Business, Fine/Performing/Communication Arts, Law, Nursing, Pharmacy and Allied Health, and Social Work: 2 each;

Each dean should work with an appropriate faculty committee in his/her college to identify possible nominees and to prepare the nominating materials. Fellowship nominations should usually occur through identification of candidates by academic administrators, the faculty committee, and leading scholars. The Fellowships are not intended to be awarded through a process of application or self-nomination. Because of the wide variation in disciplines and in the character of the credentials of nationally prominent scholars, there is no standard format for nominations. 

However, the dean and the faculty advisory committee should submit at least the following: a detailed assessment of the nominee's credentials, a current resume, a statement of the scholarly activity that will be supported, and persuasive evidence from sources outside the University that the nominee is nationally distinguished in his/her field. (Such evidence might range widely, but election to highly selective scholarly academies, selection for eminent prizes in the field, reviews of a nominee's contributions in the discipline's most prominent journals, and reviews of his/her work by leading figures in the field constitute examples. External reviews should ordinarily be those recently obtained by the University or another institution or agency for purposes other than the Distinguished Fellowship nomination; we do not encourage the seeking of external reviews for this process alone, unless there are extraordinary circumstances that require that colleagues elsewhere be asked to undertake this heavy responsibility.) 

The Selection Advisory Committee will be made up primarily of the current Distinguished Faculty Fellows. 

Nominations (original plus 5 copies in binders) are to be submitted to Trina Young, Office of Faculty Affairs, 154 Lande, by Tuesday, November 27, 2007. Final selections will be made by Friday, March 7, 2008 so that those Distinguished Faculty Fellows may use their awards for support of scholarly activity beginning on July 1, 2008.