Honoring Faculty for Early Career Contributions

The Outstanding Early Career Faculty Award honors the cumulative contributions of an early career, full-time faculty member demonstrating exceptional contributions in the beginning of their academic career. A set of contributions consistent with the faculty members percent workload should be present across the areas of research and creative activity, teaching, and professional service.

  • The candidate must demonstrate a sustained record of teaching, research and creative activity, and professional service. The primary criteria will be the impact and significance of the candidate’s work in the three areas, and some degree of integration among them at this stage of their career. The candidate must demonstrate a record of excellence and distinction in teaching, research and creative activity, and professional or community service, including mentoring of students or peers. The recipient must also demonstrate a clear record indicating a strong potential continuing to make contributions to the academy. Please refer to individual teaching, professional service and research and creative activity awards for examples of accomplishments that might be included as evidence.
  • Any full-time teaching faculty with a minimum of 2 years of service at KSU is eligible to apply for the award. Administrators with faculty rank are ineligible for faculty awards (i.e., receive a Contract for Faculty Ranked Administrators). Tenure-track faculty who have already been tenured or promoted are no longer considered early-career. Non-tenure track faculty who have been at KSU for longer than 6 years are not considered early-career. Previous award winners of this award (under any of its previous names) are not eligible to apply again. The award recipient must be under contract at KSU when the award is presented.
  • Each award consists of $5,000.
  • Up to two (2) awards may be presented annually, selected based on the qualifications of nominees.

 

Nomination Procedure

Each college is responsible for creating the process by which their nominees are chosen. College deans or their designees submit nominations. There are no limits on the number of nominees each college can submit. The selection committee can reactivate nominations submitted for 2 years after the original submission.

Nominations packets should include:

  • A completed Cover Sheet with signatures
  • A 3-5 page summary statement by the nominee highlighting early career achievements in the areas of teaching, research and creative activity, and professional service. Documentation should include a record of research and creative activity, teaching and professional service demonstrating promise as an outstanding faculty member. The summary must be created using 12-point Times New Roman font with one-inch margins
  • A condensed curriculum vitae (2-3 pages)
  • A support letter from the nominee’s academic home chair; jointly appointed faculty may submit a joint letter from both chairs or two separate letters
  • A maximum of three letters in support of the nomination, in addition to the chair’s letter (please note KSU deans are not eligible to provide a letter)
  • Any other appendix materials useful to build the case
  • All materials must be compiled into a single pdf document
  • The packet must not exceed 20 pages. The Cover Sheet does not count toward the 20-page limit

Evaluation Criteria and Procedures

The selection committee will look for contributions that demonstrate promise as an outstanding faculty member.

Nominations will be evaluated by a university committee including one member from each of the degree granting colleges, and the Executive Director for Faculty Development and Recognition. Since members serving on this committee may not be experts in the nominee's field, it is important that nominations be submitted in language understandable to faculty in other disciplines.

Submission Procedure

To submit a nomination, the college dean or their representative should:

  1. Prepare each nomination application as a separate file, ensuring the correct cover page for the award is attached as the first page of the file
  2. Click on the name of your college below to access the OneDrive folder where you will upload the nomination packet(s) for your college
    (If access is denied, please contact CETL at cetl@kennesaw.edu or 470-578-6410)
  3. Click on the Upload button at the top of the page in OneDrive to upload each nomination file


Only the college dean or their designee will submit on this webpage. Individuals should reach out to their supervisor or the dean's office to determine your college's nomination process​.

The college dean and each nominee will receive a confirmation email for their nomination within the next business day.