Alumni Association Distinguished Advising Award

The Alumni Association offers two Distinguished Advising Awards, one for faculty and one for professional advisors. The Award will be given at the Spring Faculty Awards luncheon. The Award will be accompanied by a stipend equal to that given for the University's Distinguished Teaching Award. The recommendation is that one faculty and one professional advisor award be given annually. The Selection Committee will be appointed by the Provost and will consist of two faculty members, two professional staff, two administrators, the Director of Academic Advising, and a student representative.

Eligibility

Nominees must have completed at least five (5) years of service at the University of Memphis and are at least in their sixth (6) year of service at the time of receiving the award.

Faculty may only receive the award once.  Professional advisors may receive the award twice.

For eligibility the second time, at least three (3) complete years must have passed since the first award was received (i.e. if the nominee first received the award in Spring 2020, he or she would not be eligible for a second award until Spring 2024).

How to Apply

Nominations will be solicited through various media (i.e. posters, the Daily Helmsman, email, etc.) during the Fall semester.  

Both faculty and professional advisors must receive nominations from faculty/administrators and current/former students or alumni/alumnae.  

Once a pool of qualified nominees has been established, candidates will be asked to provide supporting letters and a dossier, with a minimum of one letter from each of the following groups:

• 1. Present and former advisees
  2. Faculty/professional staff
  3. Supervisors/administrators

The dossier should support the nomination by showing that the nominee has met appropriate criteria from the following Distinguished Advising Award Criteria list;

• Undergraduate Student Contact
  • frequency of contact with undergraduate advisees
  • availability to advisees
  • meeting advisees in a variety of settings
    
    
• External Evaluation
  • advisee evaluations (summary data)
  • perception by colleague of candidate's advising skills
  • institutional recognition of candidate for advising
  • evidence of student success rate
    
    
• Interpersonal Skills
  • caring attitude toward advisees
  • intrusive behavior which builds strong relationships with advisees
    
    
• Advising Skills
  • appropriate referral activity
  • use of appropriate information sources
  • monitoring of student progress
  • mastery of institutional regulations, policies, and procedures
  • ability to engage in developmental advising
    
    
• Evidence of Professional Development and Service in Advising
  • attendance at advisor development programs
  • participation in advisor development programs
  • support of advisor development programs
  • perception of candidate as an advising resource