Award for Excellence in Faculty Outreach

Nominees should have distinguished careers in which outreach and community engagement play an integral part. All full-time Auburn faculty, including those with extension appointments, are eligible. Activities to be considered for this award should exemplify engagement characterized by collaboration, reciprocity and mutuality, in fulfillment of the University Faculty Handbook (Chapter 3) definition of outreach as “the function of applying academic expertise to the direct benefit of external audiences in support of university and unit missions.” Specific criteria address the characteristics of the engagement within a community, needs addressed, mission compatibility, scholarship generated and impact documented as defined below.

Application Process

The nomination packet should include a commentary that describes the scholarship involved in the outreach engagement achievements cited. Specifically, the commentary should include the following topics:

• Description: Provide a brief overview of the nominee’s outreach record, describing the scope of the nominee’s direct engagement within the community served, including citations of collaborations, needs addressed, objectives, methods, target audience, etc.
• Mission: How does the nominee’s outreach align with the university and unit's missions? How does this engagement integrate with and complement the teaching, research and outreach mission of the unit?
• Scholarship: Describe the role of the nominee’s professional expertise in the design and execution of the outreach. Describe how the outreach engagement demonstrates or tests the applicability of the nominee’s discipline to societal/human problems, requires integration with other disciplines and/or generates new knowledge for the discipline. How has this been communicated to broader audiences? Has this led to increased recognition of the nominee’s professional expertise, as well as Auburn's reputation as an engaged university?
• Impact: Describe the observed impacts and/or explain any unobserved impacts that can be expected based on other research and theory. Identify direct and indirect beneficiaries. How has the outreach engagement benefited the community, the university, the nominee’s department and discipline? Provide any quantitative statements (program data, comparative indices, economic impact, etc.) that illustrate the impact.

thoma07@auburn.edu.