Awards & Recognition

"You can do it!"

You have decided that a colleague is worthy of recognition for the professional contributions made, that coincide with the criteria for a President’s Award, a SUNY Chancellor’s Award, or promotion to the rank of distinguished. You will find that the preparation of a nomination package requires time, patience, and attention to detail. Likely, you will find it one of the most satisfying activities you undertake, as you explore aspects of the career and commitments your colleague has made to his/her profession, Buffalo State, and our students.

The perspective you can best keep in mind is that you seek to enable strangers to understand how your colleague’s career specifically matches up with the criteria for the award/promotion. This requires that you develop a nomination package in which everything relates to the award’s criteria.  Familiarize yourself (and other members of the nomination committee, if relevant) with the criteria and do what you can to make the criteria explicit in every aspect of the nomination process. You will find details about the criteria and timeline for each award on the main Recognition page. Words of encouragement and advice are provided by previous nominators.

Nominee’s CV/vita

One of the most important parts of the nomination package is the nominee’s CV/vita. The following guidelines were provided to the nominees in another section of this website. You can assist your nominee to reflect on his/her career by providing help or feedback on the CV.

Nominees were recommended as follows

Provide an updated vita. Be sure to include:

• Current title, campus address, e-mail address
• Current, complete information about relevant publications, presentations, awards, etc.
• Additionally, this vitae should help all readers (those who know you, as well as members of award review committees) better understand what you did.  Rather than just listing “Advisor, typical advisement load of xx undergraduate and graduate students), consider an expanded section, using a format like those listed below:
• Brief narrative descriptions of relevant initiatives or responsibilities you have undertaken in relation to the subject of the award.  These could be provided in paragraphs within your CV, or in a separate statement (depending on the format required for the award).

Nominees were advised to consider formats such as the following:

• Initiative/accomplishments
• Challenge/solutions
• Changes to previous strategies

Timeline

Work backwards from the deadline of each award. Plan on the following.

Six months in advance of the deadline

• Request from the nominee an updated vita and a list of individuals who can be asked for letters of support.
  Note: You may need to work with the nominee to add narrative sections to his/her CV that specifically address criteria in the award. Suggestions are provided regarding this in a separate section of this web site, specifically for nominees.

Five months in advance

• Send out e-mails or letters to the individuals identified by the nominee, requesting a letter within the next six weeks.

Include the following:

• A copy of the nominee’s CV
• A set of the criteria for the award/promotion
  Note:  Be sure to ask each individual writing a letter to specifically address one or more of the award criteria (as recommended by the nominee). This will make putting together the nomination package a lot easier.

Also

• Set up a system for tracking receipt of letters or promises of letters to come.  Note that in some cases, individuals will send e-mails of letters, without original signatures.  Check to see if this is acceptable, as per the award criteria.
• Set up a file for received letters of support and materials received from the candidate, so that things are very well organized.
• Share copies of the letters with your nominee as they arrive.  You will find that this is extraordinarily uplifting for you and your nominees.

Four months in advance

• Send out one reminder to all outstanding persons who were on your nominee’s list.

Three months in advance

• Identify any criteria or types of letters of support that are missing, and follow up with new people.
• Get any materials from the nominee (e.g., sample publications, letters from students, philosophy statements) to be included in the nomination package. Work with the candidate to improve the materials provided, if needed.

Two months in advance

• Prepare a summary of how the nominee meets the expectations for the award.  Although the description below comes from the Chancellor’s Award, the same type of summary statement is needed for the President’s Award and nomination to Distinguished Rank, to enable the review committee, and the Provost/Chancellor to understand the worthiness of the nominee:

Summary Presentation

The Summary Presentation provides the rationale for the campus’s nomination of a particular candidate and sets forth candidate merit for selection. It should reflect the committee’s objectivity and impartiality in coming to its decision in what is generally a highly competitive campus process.

The Summary Presentation is the only documentation available to those involved in the system-level review to explain the campus' rationale for nominating the can­didate for this honor. It must address how the candidate excels in each criterion for selection for the award to which the candidate is nominated (e.g., if there are three selection criteria, then candidate's performance in each must be described), the candidate's most outstanding qualifications and major achievements attained. The quality of the evidence provided is critical to recommendation. Although excerpts from the recommendations can and should be included, the Summary Presentation must be more than a testimonial. There must be specific, concrete examples of how the nominee fulfills each criterion.

Consider making use of the following to write the Summary Presentation:

• Reading the publications of your nominee
• Having a conversation with your nominee about some of the criteria included in the award
• Interviewing students/alumni/colleagues about their perceptions of the nominee, in relation to some of the criteria

One month in advance

Assemble the nomination package, including use of dividers and Table of Contents.

• Show the completed package to a colleague, ideally someone who has had experience with this award.  Make revisions as needed.

One week ahead of deadline

• Submit package

"You did it!"

Although your professional contributions at Buffalo State were completed without any expectation that you would be recognized for an award, one or more of your colleagues has suggested that you are exceptionally worthy, and has asked that you participate the nomination process.

There are three specific things that you can do to help your nominator(s) to move the process along:

1. Do your best to follow the timeline given to you by your nominator(s), so that there is plenty of time for each step of the nomination process. Note that it is recommended that your updated CV be provided to the individuals who are being asked for letters of support, so it will be needed sooner, rather than later, in the process.  You can always revise it further if needed, after the request for the letters of support go out.
2. Provide your nominator(s) with a list of individuals who can provide letters of support.
   In order to generate your list, review the criteria for the nomination, and select appropriate colleagues (on and off campus), as well as former/current students (or advisees, if appropriate) who can comment specifically on your qualifications for the award.
   If there are specific requirements in the award, regarding number of on/off campus letters of support, or students/alumni to be involved, keep that in mind while preparing your list.
   Because some of the people you include on your list may be unable to complete your letter in time, it is best to ask approximately 30% more than you will need.
   For each person on your list, provide the following:
   A. Name and current title (and, if appropriate, title at time nominee interacted with him/her).
   B. Current contact information: find out from your nominator(s) if both e-mail and mailing address are desired.
   C. Role (in relation to nominee, e.g., colleague, former student, current/former supervisor(s).
   d. Look over the criteria, and highlight one or two people who can address each one. Give this matched list to your nominator(s).
3. An updated vita. Be sure to include:
   A. Current title, campus address, e-mail address.
   B. Current, complete information about relevant publications, presentations, awards, etc.
   Additionally, this vita should help all readers (those who know you, as well as members of award review committees) better understand what you did. Rather than just listing “Adviser, typical advisement load of XX undergraduate and graduate students), consider an expanded section, using a format like those listed below:

• Brief narrative descriptions of relevant initiatives or responsibilities you have undertaken in relation to the subject of the award. These could be provided in paragraphs within your CV, or in a separate statement (depending on the format required for the award).
• Consider formats such as the following:
  - Initiative/accomplishments
  - Challenge/solutions
  - Changes to previous strategies

As the chair of the Awards or Promotion to Distinguished Committee, you are guided by the criteria of the award/promotion materials. Your goals, to create a positive and open climate in which the worthiness of each candidate for the nomination can be fairly reviewed, and to efficiently review each candidate, can be achieved by incorporating the following into your process. You and the provost should meet at the outset of the process to ensure that the provost’s desired timeline guides the one you set up for the committee.

1. Prepare scoring sheets created for each type of award, to be used by committee members reviewing nomination packages. Easiest approach is to take each criterion identified in the award, and create a scale for each. Your committee members can use it to follow your guidelines. You can use any of the following as 3 or 5 point scales, with the highest score being the best rating:
   A. Clearly and consistently demonstrates this quality/has this experience.
   B. From time to time demonstrates this quality/has had this experience.
   C. No evidence/unclear demonstration.
   - Duplicate copies of your scoring sheets, so that they can be distributed at your initial meeting.
2. Have an initial meeting with your committee, at which you receive the committee’s charge from the provost. Also,
   A. Share a tentative timeline with the committee members.
   B. Determine the next meeting date/time, workable for all committee members.
   C. Distribute scoring sheets for review of the nomination packages.
   D. Explain where the materials are kept, and the procedure to be used for reviewing them (e.g., they can only be reviewed within Academic Affairs; an appointment is needed to review them; etc.)
3. Decision-making meeting(s) normally take approximately 15-20 minutes per nomination to be reviewed. This process is much easier if all committee members have completed their scoring sheets, and bring them to the meeting. While discussing the candidates, try to keep opinions to a minimum, and stay focused on what is presented in the nomination package.

As Committee Chair, you will be responsible for writing a letter to the provost to explain what problems the committee members have identified, or why the committee members support the nomination. Take notes during the discussion, so that you can incorporate comments from the committee into your letter.

If possible, review examples of nomination letters need for submission to the provost (or president, as appropriate).

1. Thank you letters are an important part of the work of the Committee Chair. Ideally, although each letter can use much of the same language, you will have something personal to include about each committee member, regarding his/her contributions to the process.

The secretary to the Provost can assist you in formatting these letters, and printing them for signature.  In ideal circumstances, for highly involved members, copies can be sent to the Provost, the department chair/supervisor of the committee member, as well as any other relevant administrator.

Thank you letters are greatly appreciated by recipients.