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SUNY Chancellor's Awards for Excellence

These Chancellor's Awards for Excellence recognize the expertise, commitment, and dedication of SUNY’s diverse body of faculty, professional and classified staff. 

The Chancellor's Awards for Excellence are System-level honors conferred to acknowledge and provide system-wide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement and to encourage the ongoing pursuit of excellence. These programs underscore SUNY’s commitment to sustaining intellectual vibrancy, advancing the boundaries of knowledge, providing the highest quality of instruction and service, and serving the public good.

We encourage a diverse and inclusive pool of candidates for consideration.  

Eligibility for all SUNY Awards

  • Nominees must have completed three years of full-time service within the previous five years (years do not need to be consecutive) prior to the year of nomination.  The nominee must hold full-time status for the entire academic year in which the nominee is nominated.
  • Full-time Clinical faculty and full-time non-tenure track faculty including the title Lecturer are eligible for nomination in the following categories:  Faculty Service, Scholarship and Creative Activities, and Teaching.
  • Recipients of an Excellence Award may not be nominated for an Excellence Award in another category within a five-year interval.
  • Recipients of an Excellence Award may not be re-nominated for an award in the same category at either their current or a previous SUNY institution.

Selection

All nominations will first be reviewed by an internal review committee.  If your nominee is selected to move forward to SUNY, we will ask for your help in assembling a nomination portfolio.

Please see the award descriptions below for specific nominating details for each award.

We encourage you to consider updating and resubmitting nominations from last year, as we often have more than one excellent nomination, but can only select one for each category (2 for Teaching).

These awards provide an excellent opportunity for departments to celebrate the College’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

SUNY Faculty Award & Nomination Descriptions

SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service recognizes the consistently superior service contributions of full-time teaching faculty. This service must be sustained over multiple years and may occur in a variety of venues.

  • To be nominated, a faculty member must demonstrate consistently superior service. Eligible service contributions may occur in a variety of areas including service to the campus, the State University, the local community, or contributions at the regional, state-wide, national or international levels. Eligible activities may encompass a combination of service contributions to discipline or disciplinary and professional organizations and societies, and to leadership in local or system-wide faculty governance.
  • The nature of the service must exceed the work generally considered to be part of a candidate’s basic professional obligation (professional committees, etc.) and must include service that exceeds that for which faculty are normally compensated. There must be positive evidence of outstanding achievement and skill in providing leadership, outreach, or other university and/or community service or extraordinary service and leadership in the nominee’s professional organizations.
  • The scope of the service must extend over multiple years, must be geared toward effecting positive change and must involve the generous giving of personal time inservice to areas previously described. Candidates for this award must be full-time teaching/instructional faculty as defined by the campus who meet, and preferably exceed the selection criteria, and who also demonstrate initiative and creativity in exceeding these standards.  We realize that faculty are allowed credit release time when acquiring faculty service administrative duties.
  • Academic Background – Candidates must regularly carry a full-time teaching load as defined by the campus for full-time teaching. (The definition of a full teaching load varies from campus to campus, but each campus should be satisfied that there can be no question that its nominee meets this criterion. Teachers of studio courses or other specialized courses in which credit hours are normally low are to be considered in terms of the full-time load normally expected for the discipline.) The significance of having the campus define “full-time” teaching is particularly relevant in the case of department chairs. Campuses frequently provide course reductions for faculty serving in such capacities. If the reduction is applied uniformly, then this reduced load becomes “full-time” for that particular position. Individuals serving in this capacity may be nominated for the award contingent upon their carrying the campus-defined, full-time teaching load for persons performing such administrative responsibilities (e.g., if a campus defines 15 hours as a full-time teaching load for full-time faculty, and 12 hours as a full-time teaching load for Department Chairs, then an individual serving as a Department Chair and teaching the 12 hours and meeting the other eligibility requirements would be eligible for nomination).
  • The nomination portfolio should clearly indicate that the Department Chair is carrying a campus-defined full-time teaching load as defined for department chairs. Please remember that department chairs are always considered faculty first. Except for department chairs, teaching requirements for faculty must constitute more than 50 percent of the position’s responsibility. Otherwise, the individual should be considered for the Excellence in Professional Service Award. It is the intent that the Professional Service category be reserved for staff.
  • Length of Service – Nominees must have completed three academic years of full-time appointment within the previous five years (years do not need to be consecutive) at the nominating campus prior to the year of nomination.
  • Academic Rank – Nominees for the award may hold any full-time academic and qualified academic rank as defined in SUNY Board of Trustees policies as defined in Article II (please see SUNY Board of Trustees Policies ): professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor or assistant instructor, clinical professor, and full-time non-tenure track faculty including the title Lecturer are eligible for nomination.

Please use this online nomination form and attach a nomination packet containing a 1-2 page nomination statement and a 2–4-page CV or resume/list of accomplishments that highlights their area of expertise.

SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching recognizes consistently superior teaching at the graduate, undergraduate, or professional level in keeping with the State University’s commitment to providing its students with instruction of the highest quality.

The primary criterion is skill in teaching. Additionally, consideration is given to sound scholarship (usually demonstrated through publications or artistic productions), outstanding service to students, as well as service to the State University and to the campus. The following criteria are to be used in selecting nominees for this award:

  • Teaching Techniques and Representative Materials – There must be positive evidence that the candidate performs superbly in teaching. The nominee must maintain a flexible instructional policy that adapts readily to student needs, interests and problems. Mastery of teaching techniques, including different instructional practices that adapt to different courses, must be demonstrated and substantiated. Consideration is to be given to the number of substantially different courses taught and the number of students per course. Student evaluations (in the form of student questionnaires administered and compiled by persons other than the nominee) should be presented for several different courses over a period of several recent years to provide a clear idea of the nominee's impact on students.
  • Scholarship and Professional Growth – Candidates must be teacher/scholars who keep abreast of their own field and who use the relevant contemporary data from that field and related disciplines in their teaching. Evidence in this area includes, but is not limited to, publications, grants, presentations at conferences, professional development, creative activities, etc.
  • Student Services – In relating to students, candidates must be generous with personal time, easily accessible, and must demonstrate a continual concern for the intellectual growth of individual students. The focus here is the accessibility of the nominee to students outside of class (e.g., mentoring student research, office hours, conferences, special meetings, and the nominee's responsibility in terms of student advisement).
  • Academic Standards and Requirements, and Evaluation of Student Performance – Candidates must set high standards for students and help them attain academic excellence. Quantity and quality of work that is more than average for the subject must be required of the students. Candidates must work actively with individual students to help them improve their scholarly or creative performance. This individual interaction is an important source of information that indicates the nature and level of instruction offered by the nominee. Consideration is to be given to the quality, quantity, and difficulty of the tasks or work assigned to students. 
  • Candidates' evaluations of students' work must be strongly supported by evidence. Candidates must be willing to give greater weight to each student's final level of competence than to the performance at the beginning of the course. Since expert teachers enable students to achieve high levels of scholarship, it is possible that the candidates' marking records may be somewhat above average. There must also be evidence that candidates do not hesitate to give low evaluations to students who do poorly. For this category, consideration should be given to grading patterns, particularly grade distributions for all courses in at least two recent years. Evidence in support of student performance may also be assessed by the accomplishments of students, including placement and achievement levels.
  • Academic Background – Candidates must be tenured, tenure-track, or full-time non-tenured track faculty for the academic year in which the nominee is nominated, and regularly carry a full-time teaching load as defined by the campus for full-time teaching.
  • Length of Service – Nominees must have completed three academic years of full-time appointment within the previous five years (years do not need to be consecutive) at the nominating campus prior to the year of nomination.
  • Academic Rank – Candidates may hold any full-time academic rank as defined in the SUNY Board of Trustees policies: professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor, assistant instructor, clinical professor, and full-time non-tenure track faculty including the title Lecturer are eligible for nomination.
  • Length of Service – Candidates must have completed three academic years of full-time teaching at the nominating campus out of the five years on the nominating campus immediately prior to the year of nomination.

Please use this online nomination form and attach a nomination packet containing a 1-2 page nomination statement and a 2–4-page CV or resume/list of accomplishments that highlights their area of expertise.

SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship & Creative Activities

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities supports the pursuits foundational to sustaining the intellectual growth of SUNY institutions by recognizing consistently outstanding scholarly and creative productivity, conducted in addition to teaching, by SUNY’s instructional/teaching faculty.

Evidence of sound scholarship (traditionally research and publication in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities) and creative productivity (in fields where scholarship takes the form of artistic production, performance, composition, etc.) can be demonstrated through a variety of avenues, including grants, release time, honors, etc. The selection criteria for this award shall include a reasonable combination of, but not be restricted to, those appearing below. Nominees should be individuals who have:

  • For Scholarship (research in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities) – An excellent, sustained record of research publications in peer-reviewed journals, and/or research monographs, and/or research-oriented texts; or a record of presenting at national and/or international conferences, presentation of papers published in conference proceedings and/or digests, patents awarded, grants secured, and citation of work by individuals or groups other than the nominee’s collaborators.
  • For Creative Productivity (generally the fine or performing arts or those fields where creative productivity constitutes scholarship e.g., culinary arts, etc.) – A record of excellence in creative activity appropriate for the specific field or discipline, such as exhibitions, shows, performances, productions, and stage work; or a record demonstrating evidence of critical reviews, grants, inclusion of works in permanent collections, retrospectives, and other forms of external recognition and acclaim.
  • Academic Background – Candidates must be tenured, tenure-track, or full-time non-tenure track faculty for the academic year in which the nominee is nominated, and regularly carry a full-time teaching load as defined by the campus for full-time teaching. (Note: Please see full discussion of this issue above under “Academic Background” section for the Excellence in Faculty Service award.)
  • Length of Service – Nominees must have completed three academic years of full-time appointment within the previous five years (years do not need to be consecutive) at the nominating campus prior to the year of nomination.
  • Academic Rank – Candidates may hold any full-time academic rank as defined in the SUNY Board of Trustees policies: professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor, assistant instructor, clinical professor, and full-time non-tenure track faculty including the title Lecturer are eligible for nomination.

Please use this online nomination form and attach a nomination packet containing a 1-2 page nomination statement and a 2–4-page CV or resume/list of accomplishments that highlights their area of expertise.

SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Librarianship 

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Librarianship recognizes consistently superior professional achievement in the field of librarianship.

Nominees for the award must have demonstrated extraordinary performance in at least one of the following areas:

  • Skill in Librarianship – There must be positive evidence that the candidate performs superbly in fulfilling librarianship duties, including teaching related to librarianship.
  • Service to the University and to the Profession – There must be evidence that the candidate is flexible and adapts readily to the needs of constituents served. Eligible service areas include contributions to the library, the campus, the State University, the community and to the profession.Scholarship and Continuing Professional Growth – The candidate must keep abreast of
  • developments in the field and use relevant contemporary data in relation to that person’s work situation. Evidence in this category should include references to publications, membership and work in professional organizations, participation at meetings, seminars, etc.
  • Academic Background – Candidates must hold full-time appointment as a faculty librarian and must possess an ALA-Accredited Master of Library Science (MLS), a Master’s degree (e.g., MIS), or equivalent (e.g., MLIS).
  • Length of Service – Nominees must have completed three academic years of full-time appointment within the previous five years (years do not need to be consecutive) at the nominating campus prior to the year of nomination.
  • Academic Rank – Candidates may hold any academic rank as defined in the SUNY Board of Trustees policies: librarian, associate librarian, senior assistant librarian and assistant librarian.
  • Restrictions – Individuals serving as head of the campus library – or of all the libraries for institutions with multiple libraries – are ineligible for nomination. However, the head of the library may be eligible for the Excellence in Professional Service Award if this individual satisfies the other selection and eligibility criteria for that award.

Please use this online nomination form and attach a nomination packet containing a 1–2-page nomination statement and a 2–4-page CV or resume/list of accomplishments that highlights their area of expertise.

SUNY Staff Award & Nomination Descriptions

SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service recognizes consistently superior professional achievement within and beyond the position.

Nominees for the award must be individuals who have repeatedly sought improvement of themselves, their campuses and ultimately the State University and, in doing so, have transcended the normal definitions of excellence. At all position levels, nominees shall be those individuals who can serve as professional role models for a University system in the pursuit of excellence. The following criteria shall be used in selecting persons for nomination of this award:

  • Within the Position Description – The candidate must perform superbly in fulfilling the job description for the position(s) held; and
  • Beyond the Position Description – The candidate should also demonstrate excellence in professional activities beyond the parameters of the job description. The ideal candidate will satisfy the standards in a creative and innovative fashion while demonstrating flexibility and adapt- ability to institutional needs. Consideration should be given to capabilities and accomplishments in the areas of leadership, decision-making and problem-solving. Evidence in this category includes, but is not limited to, professional recognitions, initiation of ideas, development of proposals, and committee activities
  • Candidate Background – Candidates must presently be serving in full-time professional service capacities (not necessarily titles) with more than 50 percent of their assignment in non-teaching services. These include academic administration, business affairs, student affairs, institutional support technologies, instructional and research support technologies, and heads of campus libraries. It is the intent that the Professional Service Award be reserved for staff working full-time within their nominating campus. Full-time faculty (as defined in the eligibility criteria for Faculty Service) are not eligible. In the case of split assignments across the nominating campus, individuals are eligible for nomination for this award if they are serving in a full-time professional capacity. In addition, support staff not serving in professional class titles are ineligible for nomination, but are eligible for nomination in the Classified Service Awards category.
  • Length of Service – Nominees must have completed three academic years of full-time appointment within the previous five years (years do not need to be consecutive) at the nominating campus prior to the year of nomination. Please note, promotion within the same department does not preclude a person from being nominated.
  • Restrictions – Individuals serving in the classified services are ineligible for nomination (e.g., positions paid on an hourly rather than salary basis are generally in the classified services).

Please use this online nomination form and attach a nomination packet containing a 1-2 page nomination statement and a 2–4-page CV or resume/list of accomplishments that highlights their area of expertise.

SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Classified Service

The Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Classified Service recognizes those who continuously demonstrate outstanding achievement, skill and commitment to excellence in fulfilling the job description for the position held.

  • The nominee must be an individual who has continuously demonstrated outstanding achievement, skill and commitment to excellence in fulfilling the job description for the position held.
  • The nominee must also demonstrate excellence in activities beyond the scope of the job description. The ideal candidate will demonstrate creativity and flexibility in performing his or her position to meet campus needs. Special consideration will be given to employees who consistently provide exemplary customer service to students, staff, patients, and other members of the campus community.

All nominees must have completed at least three (3) years of continuous, full time permanent service in the Classified Service position (hourly position) for which they are nominated. Prior recipients of a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in the Classified Service are ineligible for consideration. Posthumous nominations are also ineligible.

Please use this online nomination form and attach a nomination statement of 500 words or less, in support of this nominee.