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Doherty Award
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Award Guidelines:
The Robert E. Doherty Award for Sustained Contributions to Excellence in Education

PLEASE NOTE THIS AWARD IS PRESENTED EVERY OTHER YEAR BEGINNING IN THE 2005-2006 ACADEMIC YEAR.

Purpose

Carnegie Mellon University has established the Robert E. Doherty Award for Sustained Contributions to Excellence in Education to be given to a member of the university community who has made substantial and sustained contributions to excellence in education. The Doherty Award is intended to recognize contributions to the development, implementation and evaluation of educational programs at all levels, and to the creation and maintenance of an environment that fosters excellence in education.

Examples of activities to be considered include, but are not limited to:

  • developing innovative educational programs for undergraduate, graduate or special students
  • creating and implementing programs, services or systems to nurture and sustain students, faculty or staff to achieve their full educational potential
  • developing widely used curriculum material such as text books and educational software
  • establishing educational programs that bridge the university and the community

This list is neither mandatory nor exhaustive.

Eligibility

All full-time current employees of the university are eligible to be nominated for the Doherty Award. No one person may win the award more than once or win the Doherty Award simultaneously with the Ryan Award or Academic Advising Award.

Administration

The Provost is responsible for the administration of the nomination and selection process, including calling for proposals and convening the Doherty selection committee.

The Doherty Award Committee

The Doherty selection committee consists of:

  • the three most recent recipients of the Doherty Award
  • three faculty members appointed by the Provost
  • the Doherty Committee chairperson (the Associate Provost for Education, who is a non-voting member). If this person is unavailable, the Provost will appoint another faculty member or administrator to serve in this capacity.The Doherty 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 member or administrator
  • a current or former undergraduate or graduate student.

Proposals must include a letter [maximum two single-spaced pages in length] addressed to the Doherty 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, following the guidelines. It should include a curriculum vita, cover letter and individual letters of recommendation from appropriate parties such as Carnegie Mellon faculty or administrators, colleagues and present and former students.

To Nominators Assembling Doherty Award Packages

"Winning" nominations often include items which concretely help the committee to understand the candidate's broad impact on the university community, such as:

  • letters from Carnegie Mellon colleagues who have first hand knowledge of the candidate's broad contributions to education.
  • letters from alumni who can comment on the impact of the candidate on their careers.
  • letters from colleagues off-campus who can comment on the candidate's broad contributions to education at all levels.
  • 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).

Selection

The Doherty committee will choose from the nominations submitted to it a single candidate to be recommended to the Provost as the year's recipient of the Doherty Award. Upon 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.