Overview
Amount: $1,000
Timing: Given annually on a rotating basis to a faculty member from sciences, arts, and humanities and the professional schools. (Undergraduate psychology is included with the sciences, graduate programs in psychology are included with the professional schools, and history is included with arts and humanities.)
Criteria: The award will be given to a faculty member who has demonstrated superior performance in scholarly activities and a continuing trajectory for scholarly production. Award winners will have achieved visibility within and beyond the University based on his or her body of work and may be known for any of the four distinct types of scholarship — the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of teaching, the scholarship of application, and the scholarship of synthesis. The award will be based on a body of work extending over up to five years.
Eligibility: All regular faculty members who have not been awarded the Scholar of the Year during the preceding six years — including tenured and non-tenured faculty and graduate and undergraduate faculty — will be eligible to apply.
Process
- In the year for sciences, the deans of CAS Division of STEM and Social Sciences and SPFC will identify and invite at least three faculty members to apply for the Scholar of the Year award. In the year for the arts and humanities, the dean of CAS Division of Arts and Humanities will identify and invite at least three faculty to apply for the award. In the year of the professional schools, the deans of SPFC, SOE, SHS, SBGE, and SOT will identify and invite at least three faculty members to apply for the award. Any eligible faculty member, whether or not invited, may apply for the award.
- An application will include (a) a professional CV; (b) the applicant’s two- to four-page reflection on his or her scholarship, which will include (i) a narrative describing the candidate’s scholarly trajectory (past and future), (ii) an indication of how the applicant understands that his or her Christian convictions affect his or her work, and (iii) and an indication as to how students at Seattle Pacific University are impacted by his or her work as a scholar; and (c) evidence demonstrating the impact of the scholarship on the guild and others.
- In addition, the application may include an appendix with up to four full-text articles or book chapters referenced in the applicant’s CV. The applicant may also include external letters of support from others in his or her guild.
- In the year for sciences, the deans of CAS Division of STEM and Social Sciences and SPFC will jointly select three to six finalists for the award. In the year for the arts and humanities, the dean of CAS Division of Arts and Humanities will select three to six finalists for the award. In the year of the professional schools, the deans of SPFC, SOE, SHS, SBGE, and SOT will jointly select three to six finalists for the award. In addition, in their respective years, the deans will appoint a four-person review committee made up of three faculty from the relevant disciplines and a librarian (to be selected in consultation with the University Librarian). The selection of finalists and the review committee will be completed by the end of the Winter Quarter. In the event that deans cannot agree on the selection of finalists or of the review committee, the provost will make the final decision.
- During Spring Quarter, the review committee will assess the applications of the finalists and select the Scholar of the Year. The selection will be announced at the annual Faculty Governance and Award Luncheon, held in June.
- In any given year, after reviewing the applications the review committee may determine that none of the faculty applicants warrant an award and may decline to make a selection. In such a case, no award will be made for the year.