Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Tech mission statement includes:

Our mission is clear: "to provide the state of Georgia with the scientific and technological base, innovation, and workforce it needs to shape a prosperous and sustainable future and quality of life for its citizens." It is achieved through educational excellence, innovative research, and outreach in selected areas of endeavor…..

Georgia Tech values its position as a leading public research university in the United States and understands full well its responsibility to advance society toward a proper, fair, and sustainable future. By seeking to develop beneficial partnerships within public and private sectors in education, research, and technology, Georgia Tech ensures relevance in all that it does and assures that the benefits of its discoveries are widely disseminated and used in society.
This award provides Georgia Tech with the opportunity to reward faculty members for productive academic outreach in which they go beyond their normal duties to enrich the larger educational community with their subject matter knowledge. We anticipate granting one or two awards annually depending on the number and quality of nominations. However, no more than one faculty member from any given academic unit will be chosen in the same year.  The award amount is $2500; if two awards are given, this sum will be evenly split between the two winners.

Timeline

• Nomination packets are due by 5:00 p.m. on the first Monday of February.
• Awards will be presented at the Faculty/Staff Honors Day Luncheon in April. 
• Award winners will also be honored at the New Faculty Orientation Dinner in August.
   

Eligibility Criteria

• Candidates must be full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty members.
• Self-nominations are permitted. 
   

Nomination Process

• The nomination packet (no more than 12 pages) should be submitted electronically as a MS Word or Adobe PDF file to the Provost’s office at the following email address: joyce.weinsheimer@cetl.gatech.edu. 
• The nomination packet should include the following items:
  • Letter of nomination or self-nomination
  • Table of contents for the packet
  • Description, written by the candidate, of the excellence and impact of the outreach activities. (no more than 4 pages)
  • Letters of support from:
    1. the candidate’s department head or chair (if this person is the nominator, the nomination letter will suffice for this requirement).
    2. two or three letters from those who have observed the candidate’s outreach activity.  These letters need to show why the author feels the projects are meritorious.  The writer should be a stakeholder in K-12 education (teacher, parent, administrator, member of state or county education agency, etc.).
        

Selection Criteria

This award is for faculty who reach out to establish beneficial partnerships within public and private sectors in education, especially K-12.  The point is to use the faculty member’s academic expertise to further the learning of K-12 students, teachers or other educational stakeholders of Georgia.
The criteria which follow give a basis for the committee’s recommendation of the selection committee.  These are well aligned with the National Science Foundation’s “second criterion.” Not all of the items below need to be addressed.  Does the project:

• include educational innovations, especially in K-12 venues?
• show how well the activity advances discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning?
• show what the benefits of the proposed activity may be to society in general or locally?
• have significant impact on students' or teachers’ lives, both in and beyond the classroom?
• include efforts that produce long term (multi-year) benefits to K-12?
• reach  beyond the GT classroom and laboratory?
• show a variety of different activities and venues?
• have activities which are inclusive (that is, with multiple groups of be students)?
• demonstrate clear evidence that the outreach has goals are clearly defined and is productive?

The Academic Outreach and Educational Partnership awards will have the same timeline and there may be movement of applications between the two pools depending on which competition is more appropriate for the application.

Questions

Contact Dr. Donna Llewellyn at donna.llewellyn@cetl.gatech.edu.

Previous Winners

2012