So here is my dilemma. I have a really interesting job; I help faculty at Florida State University apply for or nominate colleagues for external awards. I get to learn about all disciplines across the university. I get to work with the highest achieving faculty. I get to read proposals for and reflections on great teaching, impassioned research, and sacrificial service. As interesting as all that is, awards are not a daily event for even the most accomplished. So how many award blogs can a director write?
I will soon post stories of award winners here. Stay tuned. But today I have to say in public, again, what I believe about awards. Awards for those working in higher education and research are special. The best of us will get only a handful in a very distinguished career. I will not work with the same faculty every year (though I will definitely work with the same high-achieving faculty more than once). My hope is to work with most faculty at least once in a career. If one is employed at Florida State University as a professor – whatever rank – one is capable of and expected to produce award-winning research, teaching, and service. Research I university faculty do that, regularly. It is not arrogant or unseemly to let my office know you have a potentially award-worthy publication, or discovery, or pedagogy. Doing so gets the word out and spreads that knowledge just created. It attracts students and colleagues who want to be collaborators. Sharing our knowledge, even that we discover or create, is what we do here at FSU.
Many – perhaps most – will not win an award on the first nomination. Some may not win at all. But every award nomination spreads the word about the good work begin done at Florida State University. Even work not recognized is sometimes remembered as one remarkable achievement in an exceptionally remarkable year.
That said, we are extremely proud of our award winners at FSU. We are ever so pleased when others acknowledge the quality work we know is here. To that end, award announcements as well as nomination deadlines will be worked more frequently into these blogs. For a director does, indeed, have a limited number of blogs about the awards process in her. But the blogs about faculty success, they will always be readily available.
