Award Guidelines:
The Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Advising and Mentoring
PLEASE NOTE THIS AWARD IS PRESENTED EVERY OTHER YEAR BEGINNING IN THE 2005-2006 ACADEMIC YEAR.
Purpose
Carnegie Mellon University has established the Academic Advising Award to recognize members of the university community who have achieved excellence in providing undergraduate and graduate academic advising and mentoring. The award is intended to recognize outstanding contributions in helping students at the university to define and achieve their academic goals. Examples of activities to be considered include, but are not limited to, advising on course selection, research focus and management, choice of major/minor, long-term career goals and personal development.
Eligibility
All full-time current Carnegie Mellon faculty and staff who advise undergraduate and/or graduate students are eligible. This includes tenure track and non-tenure track faculty members, assistant and associate department heads, assistant and associate deans, academic department staff members and staff members employed by on-campus student service organizations. The award is intended to recognize service both within and beyond normal job responsibilities. No one person may win the award more than once or win the Academic Advising Award simultaneously with the Ryan Award or Doherty Award.
Administration
The Provost is responsible for the administration of the nomination and selection process, including calling for proposals and convening the Academic Advising Award committee.
The Academic Advising Award Committee
The Academic Advising Award Committee will consist of:
- the three most recent recipients of the Academic Advising Award (previously called the Undergraduate Advising Award)
- two undergraduate students and one graduate student selected through a process developed by the Dean of Student Affairs
- three additional faculty and administrative staff members appointed by the Provost.
- the Academic Advising Award chairperson (the Associate Provost for Education, who is a non-voting member of the committee). If this person is unavailable, the Provost will appoint a senior faculty member or administrator to serve in this capacity.
The Academic Advising Award committee will adopt its own rules of procedure.
Nomination
Nominations may be made by any group of three or more persons, each of whom is either:
- a current or retired faculty or staff member
- a current or former undergraduate or graduate student
Proposals must include a letter [maximum two single-spaced pages in length] addressed to the Academic Advising Award committee in care of Dr. Susan Ambrose, Associate Provost for Education, Cyert Hall 127. The letter must be received by the committee on or before the first Monday in November, to be considered for that academic year.
The committee will select at least two and at most five persons each year to be considered for the award.
The proposers of each person so selected are then responsible, together with the relevant dean/department head (or his or her designee) for preparing the full case for that nomination. It should include a curriculum vitae/resume, cover letter and individual letters of recommendation from appropriate parties, including Carnegie Mellon faculty or administrators and present and former students. The package should include no more than 30 letters.
Twelve copies of each fully documented nomination must be submitted on or before the first Monday in February in the form of a CD or DVD (PDF format preferred).
The Academic Advising Award committee will choose from the nominations submitted to it a single candidate to recommend. Upon the committee's recommendation and the Provost's approval, the award recipient will be announced in late February, and the award presented at a public ceremony open to the entire university community in late spring.
