Outstanding Scholarship and Creative Activity Award

The Outstanding Scholarship and Creative Activity Award is designed to encourage, reward, and publicly acknowledge sustained excellence in research and creative activity by members of the University’s faculty. The award recognizes excellence in the visual and performing arts, in the publication of scholarly work, in the completion of research and sponsored projects, and in the development of new and innovative ideas in research and creative activity.

Award Criteria

The candidate must demonstrate a sustained record of research or creative activity, and an impact on their field of study. The following is a non-ranked, non-exhaustive list of examples of accomplishments that may be included as evidence.

  • Peer-reviewed publications;

  • Record of research grants and contracts;

  • Record of holding patents and licenses;

  • Conference presentations, participations and contributions;

  • Development of software, instructional tools, and electronic media;

  • Dissemination of scholarly work or creative activities to the appropriate audiences and professional groups through, for example, the presentation of seminars, workshops, invited talks, artistic performances or artistic exhibits;

  • External awards and recognitions by local, national and international organizations for scholarly and creative achievements;

  • Inclusion of research and scholarly work results in instruction and/or course development and improvement;

  • Involvement in organizing local, national and international conferences, forums, artistic exhibits, galleries and performances;

  • Leadership in developing new areas of scholarship and creativity;

  • Overall contributions to the advancement, application, or pedagogy of a discipline or interdisciplinary studies;

  • Mentoring of faculty and/or students into research.

Eligibility

Any full-time teaching faculty is eligible to be nominated for the award. Administrators with faculty rank are ineligible for faculty awards (i.e., receives a Contract for Faculty Ranked Administrators). Previous award winners of this award (under any of its previous names) are not eligible to apply again. The award recipient must be under contract at KSU when the award is presented.

Award Amount

Each award consists of $10,000.

Number and Frequency of Awards

Up to two (2) awards may be presented annually, selected based on the qualifications of nominees.

Nomination Procedures 

Each college is responsible for creating the process by which their nominees are chosen. College deans or their designees submit nominations. There are no limits on the number of nominees each college can submit. The selection committee can reactivate nominations submitted for 2 years after the original submission.

Nominations packets should include:

  • A completed Cover Sheet with signatures;

  • A 3-5 page summary statement by the nominee highlighting their scholarly and creative achievements in relation to the award criteria. References to the recognition of the nominee's research or creative activity should also be included. This includes reviews, citations, citation index, external funding, previous awards. The summary must be created using 12-point Times New Roman font with one-inch margins;

  • A condensed curriculum vitae (2-3 pages); 

  • A support letter from the nominee’s academic home chair; jointly appointed faculty may submit a joint letter from both chairs or two separate letters;

  • A maximum of three letters in support of the nomination, in addition to the chair’s letter (please note KSU deans are not eligible to provide a letter);

  • Any other appendix materials useful to build the case;

  • All materials must be compiled into a single pdf document;

  • The packet must not exceed 20 pages. The Cover Sheet does not count toward the 20-page limit.

Evaluation Criteria and Procedures

The selection committee will look for originality, creativity, productivity and for an outstanding body of scholarly or creative activities that has gained national and international recognition. Factors to be considered will also include the scope and difficulty of the research/creative activity, degree of innovation and independent thought, development of new ideas, techniques and methodology, and the significance of the candidate's research to his or her field. They will also evaluate the continued active involvement of the nominee and the promise of future accomplishments. Nominations will be evaluated by a university committee including one member from each of the degree granting colleges, the Executive Director for Faculty Development and Recognition, and the Vice President for Research or their designate. Since members serving on this committee may not be experts in the nominee's field, it is important that nominations be submitted in language understandable to faculty in other disciplines.

Submission Procedure

To submit a nomination, the college dean or their representative should:

  1. Prepare each nomination application as a separate file, ensuring the correct cover page for the award is attached as the first page of the file.

  2. Click on the name of your college below to access the OneDrive folder where you will upload the nomination packet(s) for your college.
    (If access is denied, please contact CETL at cetl@kennesaw.edu or 470-578-6410.)

  3. Click on the Upload button at the top of the page in OneDrive to upload each nomination file.

The college dean and each nominee will receive a confirmation email for their nomination within the next business day.

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