December 2008

Graduate School and Women's Center
Distinguished Women Scholars Awards

To: Faculty members, Deans, Department Heads/Chairs

From: Myrna Smith, Director of Faculty Research and Graduate Fellowships, Graduate School
Peg Lonnquist, Interim Director, Women's Center

Subject: Distinguished Women Scholars Award Nomination Invitation for 2009

Deadlines:

Nominations to College Deans: Friday, January 23, 2009
Final nominations from College Deans to the Graduate School: Friday, January 30 , 2009

It is with great pleasure that we announce the Distinguished Women Scholars Awards competition, supported collaboratively by the Office of the Dean of the Graduate School and the Women's Center. Established in 2001, this program awards one person per year in each of the following areas:

• Sciences and Engineering
• Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts

Program Purpose and Description

The purpose of this program is to (1) acknowledge and honor the accomplishments of distinguished women scholars at the University of Minnesota and (2) to promote a more diverse atmosphere for student learning in departments where women are underrepresented.  The focus of this award is the scholarship of distinguished women. The two awards will be presented at a ceremony to be held at the Celebrating University Women Awards Program sponsored by the Women's Center on April 20th, 2009 from 2:30-4:30 p.m. in the McNamara Alumni Center Memorial Hall. Each scholar will be awarded $2,000 to be used for research, scholarly or artistic activities.

Eligibility

Eligibility is limited to tenured women faculty who have been at the University of Minnesota for at least five years, and who are in departments where women are underrepresented among tenured faculty. While we anticipate that the majority of nominees will be at the rank of full professor, we recognize that there may be exceptional cases among those who have achieved prominence at earlier stages of their career. Having obtained other distinguished awards or recognition (e.g., McKnight or Regents Professorships) is not a disqualifier.

Nomination Procedure

While nominations should ordinarily be made by the department chair/head or a standing departmental nomination committee and forwarded to the collegiate dean, direct nominations by the deans are also acceptable. Individual faculty may not nominate themselves for this award.

1. Nomination dossiers are prepared by department chairs/heads or college deans.
2. Nomination dossiers are submitted to the nominee’s college deans by Friday, January 23, 2009 .
3. The deans review and write letters of endorsement for the nominees they wish to select.
4. The nomination dossiers including the deans' endorsement letters should be submitted to the Graduate School Selection Committee by Friday, January 30, 2009.

Click here to see nomination dossier requirements.

Nominations sent directly to the Graduate School instead of to the respective College Dean’s office will be returned to the nominator.

Review and Selection Criteria

A committee composed of distinguished faculty from different disciplines across the university will review nominations. Selection criteria in order of importance to the committee are:

1. Quality of the nominee’s scholarly or creative achievements, with emphasis on originality, imagination and innovation.
2. Impact on the field.
3. National and international scholarly reputation.
4. Distinction in undergraduate and graduate education.
5. Contributions to the university, profession and the wider community.

Nominations should be addressed as follows:

Office of the Dean of the Graduate School
Faculty Grants Office
420 JohH
101 Pleasant Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Attn: Distinguished Women Scholars Award Committee

For questions, please contact facgrant@umn.edu or 612-625-2356. We look forward to receiving your nominations.

See list of Past Distinguished Women Scholar Awardees