Early Career Faculty

Award Ladders听

Often times, honorific awards follow a 鈥渓adder鈥 approach, where receiving one award often听 increases the likelihood of success in reaching the next.听

The best way to build a path to your honorifics success, is to show growth and achievement along the way. Internal Awards at DU or External Awards both serve that purpose and are wonderful avenues to honor your academic journey.

As an early career faculty member, it鈥檚 best to look for entry-level awards, such as:

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* Denotes a Limited Submission opportunity, requiring a special University process to apply.听

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Looking for other honorific awards?

Honorifics Planning Guide

  • Plan for the future.
    • Plan ahead by mapping out the short, medium and long-term honorific awards you would like to achieve.

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    • Those awards might require a membership to their society for a certain length of time. If so, build that into your timeframe in advance.听

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    • Research previous recipients to determine which awards they achieved leading up to your goal. Honorifics often follow a 鈥渓adder鈥 approach where receiving one award often leads to increasing the likelihood of success in reaching the next.
  • Touch base annually.
    • Consider discussing your honorific award goals with your department chair during your annual review.

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    • Having this line of communication open may help keep your goals in sight and provide an opportunity to get valuable feedback on your path to achieving them.听
  • Practice peer review.
    • One way of keeping in touch with awards and/or society memberships that might fit your path would be checking out what others are doing in similar trajectories to yours.听

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    • Consider starting with those individuals you鈥檝e collaborated with or met at a conference that seemed to jive as similar to your work. It鈥檚 possible that you would be eligible for awards they have won or would be interested in joining similar professional societies.听
  • Reach out to past DU recipients.听
    • If an award you are interested in has already been received by another faculty member at DU, contact them for insights they might be willing to share.听

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    • As an added bonus, they might be willing to advise if they believe it鈥檚 a good fit at this time or if maybe there is an area you could improve upon first.听

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    • Past recipients also make great references!
  • Join or Create an Awards Committee.
    • One way to develop a stronger award submission is to help review others. Consider finding a group either within your department or across the University to work together this process.

General Awards Process

Each and every award is varied in terms of the awarding organization, the requirements you must fulfill to be considered, how many references you will need, who will submit the nomination packet, etc.听

That being said, this is the standard process awards go through:

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Identify

During an initial meeting, the faculty member and Honorifics coordinator discuss potential award opportunities matching their career stage and focus.听

The faculty member chooses which award(s) they would be interested in pursuing.

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Research

We take the time to double check the suitability of the award, such as: researching the recent awardees and their projects; and reviewing the specifics of the award language.听

This is also the step where we liaison with the awarding organization to fill in the blanks for their next nomination cycle and what might be requested in their packet.

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Network

The faculty member considers potential nominators and references from their peers, collaborators, mentors, and/or students.

It's helpful to consider past recipients of this award, as well as colleagues who are highly regarded for their work within the organization as well.听

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Reach Out

We'll work together to decide who will contact potential nominators and begin the process.听

If more than one nominator is required by the awarding organization, the faculty member will identify one individual as the "primary nominator", and they will be the one to submit the packet of materials.

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Submit

We will follow all award guidelines to ensure our nomination materials meet the submission requirements in advance of the due date. Nominations are generally submitted by the nominator themselves.

When multiple nominators are involved, the Honorifics coordinator will compile and format the packet appropriately and then provide it to the primary nominator for submission.听

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Exercise Patience

It will usually take a few months to hear back on the status of the award submission. 听

If you happen to receive word on the award decision first, please reach out to the Honorifics coordinator to share in the good news! We will post it on our Recent Award Recipients page.听