Being Award Ready

Thinking ahead and understanding available opportunities will help set and keep your career on an award trajectory. Consider the following:

  • Familiarize yourself with the processes for awards and recognition available within your professional associations or societies. This will help you to prepare competitive nomination packages that align with eligibility and selection criteria.
  • Maintain professional memberships. Often awards sponsored by professional associations and societies requires nominees to have a certain length or level of membership.
  • Think through how you might build a profile of awards not only for this academic year, but for the future as well.
  • Help create an institutional culture of recognition by nominating your colleagues, peers, and mentors. This helps to cultivate a dialogue regarding awards and fellowships and puts you in a good position to secure letters and nominations when needed.
  • If one does not already exist, work with your department leadership to start an awards committee. Together with the committee, the Coordinator can work with your department to make sure that discipline-specific awards are reviewed annually and your department’s faculty are aware of opportunities to advance their career in this way.
  • Using Academic Analytics to map out the future.

Awards Articles and Resources