Faculty Excellence Awards – Committee Policies and Procedures

  1. At the beginning of each school year, the Dean of the Law School shall appoint five members of the Faculty Excellence Committee, including the three faculty members who won the Law School Faculty Excellence Award the previous year, one current student, and one alumnus.
  2. Following the timetable established and published by the Provost, the Dean of the Law School shall declare an “Open Nomination Period” soliciting nominations for the Faculty Excellence Awards in Teaching, Research, and Public Service from eligible law school faculty (including self nominations), staff, alumni, and other interested constituencies of the Law School.
  3. During the Open Nomination Period:
    1. Faculty Excellence Committee members shall be prohibited from making nominations;
    2. Faculty Excellence Committee members shall be prohibited from suggesting or encouraging specific nominations by others.
  4. Upon the deadline the Provost establishes for submission of nominations to the Dean, the Open Nomination Period shall expire and the Dean shall forward the nominations to the Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee.
  5. Upon receipt of nominations from the Dean, the Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee shall contact each nominator about preparation of a nomination packet pursuant to the instructions and deadlines set out by the Provost. The Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee shall also contact any unselected nominees from the previous year to inquire whether they wish their nominations to be carried over for one additional year. In the event such unselected nominees from the previous year wish to be reconsidered, the Chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee shall advise them of the current year’s instructions and deadlines set out by the Provost, in the event such nominees desire to update their nomination packets from the previous year.
  6. In the event the Dean has received no nominations for any one of the three Faculty Excellence Awards,
    1. The Faculty Excellence Committee members shall select a nominee for any such uncontested award category;
    2. The Faculty Excellence Committee chair shall notify such committee-selected nominees and obtain the nominee’s acceptance of the nomination;
    3. Upon receipt of such nominee’s acceptance, the Faculty Excellence Committee shall designate a person to prepare a nomination packet for the named nominee.
  7. In all contested award categories,
    1. Faculty Excellence Committee members shall be prohibited from contributing supporting materials to nomination packets subject to provision 9 below; and
    2. If a Faculty Excellence Committee member is involved in any way with a nomination or its support, that member shall recuse himself or herself from subsequent deliberations on the winner of the award.
  8. The chair of the Faculty Excellence Committee, in his or her discretion, may extend the deadline for submitting nomination packets to the committee. The new deadline shall be no later than three business days after the original deadline set by the University Provost. If the deadline is extended, the chair shall notify all nominators and nominees of the extension. All nominations shall be subject to the new deadline.
  9. Once the nominees for each award category have been finalized, the Faculty Excellence Committee shall cause a list of all nominees to be published on the law school “lawfac-l” listserv, and the Faculty Excellence Committee shall set a date for meeting to select the Law School winners of the three awards.
  10. Once the Faculty Excellence Committee has selected winners for the three categories, members of the Committee are permitted to contribute supporting materials.
  11. Once the Faculty Excellence Committee has selected winners in each of the three award categories, it shall cause a list of all such winners to be published on the law school “lawfac-l” listserv. One copy of each Law School winner’s packet shall be forwarded to the Provost no later than the date specified in the Provost’s announcement.

 

Adopted by the Faculty on January 12, 2009

Revised August 16, 2011