The Faculty Senate gives awards each year to deserving faculty members in the areas of teaching, scholarship, and service. The awards are given by school (except for the School of Arts and Sciences - these are given using the old divisions of Arts and Letters and Science and Technology). Faculty, therefore, “compete” only against other faculty nominated from their respective schools. A total of 12 awards are given to outstanding faculty. Winners are announced and awards presented at the Faculty-Staff Recognition Awards Banquet at the end of the spring semester.
Faculty members may be nominated by students, other faculty members, administrators, staff, or alumni for the awards. Nominations are generally open for a three week period in January. Nominations must be submitted online via Southeastern’s home page. The event is publicized both before and during the nomination period in the following ways: flyers placed in all campus mailboxes (which faculty are asked to read in classes), additional flyers posted in prominent positions around campus, on Southeastern’s home page, radio spots on KSSU, and notices in the Southeastern (campus newspaper).
Once nominations close, faculty members that have been nominated are sent a letter notifying them that they have been nominated for a Faculty Senate award. They are also told that they may send in (by email) a one-page letter of support describing why they think they are deserving of the award. If anyone is nominated in more than one category they will receive multiple notification letters so that they may respond addressing each category separately. Nominated faculty are generally given one week to respond.
After response letters are received, all of the information is put onto a website for the official voting procedure. Faculty Senators are given a website address and a password to vote. The website has a list of each faculty member nominated in each category by school, all of the nomination letters, and all of the letters of support. The senators use this information to vote. Each senator may only vote for one person in each category and may only vote one time. The voting process takes approximately one week. The results are tabulated by the computer and given to the Planning Committee and the Chair of the Faculty Senate.
In the event of a tie, the entire Faculty Senate once again votes. This vote is only between the faculty members involved in the tie. The vote is by secret ballot held during the March Faculty Senate meeting. Senators may again view the hardcopy of supporting information. Ballots are counted by the Chair of the Faculty Senate. The final results are not announced until the awards banquet.
The official names of the awards are: