Dean's Award for Excellence

Purpose

The awards recognize Arts & Sciences employees whose innovation and leadership result in significant, positive impacts enabling Arts and Sciences to more effectively carry out its missions of teaching, research and service.

Criteria and Award Categories

Dean's Award for Excellence in Innovation

The Dean's Award for Excellence in Innovation recognizes individuals who show outstanding innovation or creativity when confronted with challenges, issues, or a need or desire for improvement.

An innovative employee:

• proactively identifies areas that can be improved upon;
• actively seeks information to improve processes and/or services;
• identifies new and creative ways of addressing processes or delivering services;
• works to implement change in a positive manner and strives to ensure its success.

Honorees will be chosen based on their creativity and the impact of their actions, as well as the impact of the innovation itself. Strong nominees will exhibit more than one of the points listed above.

Dean's Award for Excellence in Leadership

The Dean's Award for Excellence in Leadership recognizes individuals who exemplify outstanding leadership in the management of Arts and Sciences operations, including finance, HR/payroll, student administration, or other operations that contribute to the effective and efficient functioning of academic, research or service functions in the school.

A truly noteworthy leader in Arts and Sciences exhibits one or more of the following characteristics:

• mentors and cultivates employees, creating a culture of respect where information sharing, communication, delegating, and expansion of knowledge, skills, and abilities are valued;
• promotes diversity, accountability and responsibility within the organization;
• takes ownership of organizational or personnel issues and works collaboratively to find solutions that make it easier for faculty, students, staff or others to operate;
• assists people or organizations outside his or her own, contributing to the success of an initiative that benefits those outside their own department;
• finds other ways to contribute to the success of their staff, faculty, organization, peers, school or university.

Nomination and Award Process

All employees and students in Arts and Sciences are encouraged to acknowledge the hard work and achievements of their eligible co-workers, colleagues, and peers by nominating them for a Dean’s Award for Excellence.

The nomination form is electronic and can be found at:

http://artsandsciences.virginia.edu/daenominate

The form asks for information that identifies the nominee, nominator, the type of excellence award, and asks for the following information:

• summarize the accomplishment in two sentences;
• indicate when the accomplishment occurred;
• describe how the accomplishment relates to the qualities of either innovation or leadership;
• explain who the accomplishment benefits, and how it benefits them;
• why the accomplishment is important to the organization, school, University or other target population.

Nominations will be received electronically and an e-mail will be sent automatically to the nominee’s supervisor. Supervisors will review nominations and provide comments regarding the nomination, which will be forwarded to the Reward and Recognition Committee as part of the nomination. If the supervisor has concerns about the accuracy, context, or completeness of the nomination, they should address the issues directly with the nominator and address the outcome of that conversation in the supervisor’s submission. If there are performance-related issues that disqualify the nominee, the supervisor will check a box on the submission form that notifies the Dean’s Office of a possible disqualifying situation. The Dean’s Office will then communicate with the supervisor to discuss the situation and determine if the nomination will be accepted for review or disqualified. The nominator will be notified by the Dean’s Office if the nomination is disqualified.

The Reward and Recognition Committee will review all qualified nominations and select the recipients, subject to approval by the Dean of Arts and Sciences or his delegate. The Dean’s Office will notify the award recipients, their supervisors, and the nominators. Nominators will be notified by the Dean’s Office if the submitted nomination is not selected for an award.

Awards

The recipients of Dean’s Awards for Excellence will receive a cash award of $750. All awards will be conveyed at the quarterly Arts and Sciences Reward and Recognition Reception. Eligible employees are limited to two awards in a 12-month period.

Not all nominations are guaranteed to result in an award.