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Graduate Faculty Advisor Award

Nominations Due February 1
Awarded during the Graduate Research Fair

Purpose: To honor, award, and encourage a faculty member whose dedication and commitment to excellence in graduate advising/program coordination have made a significant contribution to:

  • the quality of life and professional development of graduate students (and)
  • the functioning of graduate programs (and)
  • the Graduate School at Eastern Michigan University.

Award: the recipient will receive a travel award of $500 to be used during the next fiscal year.

Eligibility: Must be a current EMU tenured or tenure track faculty member and have been employed at EMU at least three years. Must be recognized as a Graduate Advisor or Graduate Program Director or Coordinator. Recipients of the Graduate Advising award for the two previous years are ineligible. Recipients of the Graduate Mentoring award for the two previous years are ineligible. A single nominee is not eligible to concurrently receive the Mentoring and Advising Awards.

Criteria: Graduate faculty are responsible to the individuals they advise, their institutions, the educational community, and higher education in general. Advisors are responsible for multiple administrative tasks that are essential to the efficient and effective recruitment, processing and ultimate success of graduate students and programs. Given the multiple tasks of Graduate Advisor/Coordinator/Director there will be no single set of criteria appropriate to all nominees. Nominators are encouraged to think creatively about the contributions of the nominee.

Examples of the kinds of contributions to consider when submitting a nomination for the Graduate Faculty Advisor Award may include, but are not limited to:

  • Availability to advisees, faculty, or staff
  • Strong interpersonal skills
  • Recruitment or marketing initiatives for the program
  • Frequency of contact with advisees
  • Appropriate referral activity
  • Use and dissemination of appropriate information sources
  • Evidence of student success rate, by advisor or program
  • Caring, helpful attitude toward advisees, faculty, and staff
  • Meeting advisees in informal settings
  • Monitoring of student progress toward academic and career goals
  • Mastery of institutional regulations, policies, and procedures - form processing
  • Ability to engage in, promote, and support developmental advising
  • Participation in and support of advisor development programs
  • Perception by colleagues and/or supervisors of nominee's advising or advising administration skills
  • Responsiveness to students, Graduate School, Admissions, Records and Registration issues
  • Evidence of problem solving skills
  • Mentoring of program/department/school faculty colleagues
  • Active participation in program development or updating, program review or accreditation
  • Assists with selection of faculty/adjuncts for graduate teaching assignments
  • Develops course rotation of offerings
  • Tracks program enrollment and graduation/program completion
  • Support and training of program graduate assistants, as appropriate.
  • Selection Procedure                       

Nomination packets will be reviewed by an interdisciplinary committee composed of members of the Graduate Council Program Support Committee (GPSC). Awards will be granted by the Dean of the Graduate School based on the recommendation of this committee.

Previous Award Recipients

  • 2013 Dr. Doug Baker, English
  • 2012 Dr. Genevieve Peden, World Languages
  • 2011 Dr. Pat Pokay, Teacher Education
  • 2010 Dr. Krish Rengan, Chemistry

Nomination Procedure                  

Nominations may come from students, faculty colleagues, and/or administrators. A completed nomination package that includes the nomination form and at least three but no more than six letters of support should be submitted electronically to graduate_school@emich.edu no later than Feb. 1. The nominee’s name must be included in the file name(s) (i.e., "Selman_Nomination.docx"). Self-nominations will not be considered.

Packets must include at least:     

  • Nomination form
  • Two letters of support from faculty members AND
  • One letter of support from a supervisor/administrator/department head or school director
  • Letters from students/alumni are optional but encouraged

No more than six letters of support will be considered.

Please do not submit Curriculum Vitae/Resumes. The committee will contact the appropriate person if additional information is required.