By SHANNON O. WELLS
As part of the American Association of Universities (AAU) recent rankings of schools based on their faculty awards, a graphic uses gray to represent schools in the “mean” range, with colors getting darker for schools with fewer awards. Pitt lands in the red zone.
During a presentation at the Senate Research Committee’s October meeting, Rob Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for research, dwelled on the less-than-encouraging conclusion.
“Those of you who don’t have deep statistical training might also note that being at the bottom of this is not a happy place to be,” he observed. “We are consistently in the bottom quartile for faculty awards, which I think is a terrible thing. What this says is, quantitatively, our faculty are under awarded.
“I don’t think our faculty are undeserving of awards,” he added. “I think we have not been executing on getting our faculty the awards that they deserve.”
Noting that the strategic Plan for Pitt calls for improvements in this area, Rutenbar said the recently introduced Canvas software-based Honorific Awards Training Program is designed to make it easier for faculty to share awards and recognition for their own research as well that of their colleagues.
“What’s in the Plan for Pitt is basically trying to take a step to repair this,” he said of Pitt faculty’s recognition deficit.
Michael Holland, vice chancellor for science policy and research strategies, presented an overview of the self-guided program, whose creation he credited to Pitt’s Center for Teaching and Learning.
“You sort of register yourself for it — preferably, everyone will go through it once — but it’s modular, so that you can go back and pick out that one little piece that you need in the future,” he noted.
The program starts by explaining a) the benefits of applying for awards for an individual faculty member’s career; b) how to develop a sense of which awards are appropriate; and c) the sequence of awards that make the most sense for where you are in your career arc.
It also helps connect users with resources on campus to determine what that award progression could look like and provides coaching on preparing and reviewing materials before submitting them. The program also emphasizes how to manage and enhance one’s “online presence” when applying for awards.
“We sort of talk about managing the visibility online after your nomination has gone in, because you should always assume that, unless you know that everybody on the selection committee knows you, one of the first things they will do is Google your name,” he said. “So we want to make sure that you’ve thought through what that online presence looks like.”
To assist award winners in promoting their achievements, the program offers guidance about who should be notified when submitting a nomination package.
“Sponsors of awards have something that they want to get out of it,” Holland explained. “And making sure that the award and the awardee are appropriately promoted is kind of the quid pro quo in that awards ecosystem.”
The program modules include a mix of brief videos that introduce the material and a plethora of resources embedded in the training, including annotated examples of successful application packages. Holland highlighted a nomination he put together for the Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory led by Emily Elliott, professor in the Department of Geology and Environmental Science.
“This was a successful nomination, and it’s also a bigger package, so it’s a good example to use for showing all of the parts and pieces we similarly have,” Holland said, including annotated curriculum vitae (CV). “Preparing a CV for a nomination is a different exercise than preparing one for successful promotion-and-tenure review, so we explain those differences and show people how to assess whether their CV is award ready.”
The program does the same thing with nomination letters, letters of support and supporting documents.
“We do try to give very practical advice on the different platforms that you should think of, making sure that you’re present in some way that is appropriate for your field,” he said, such as determining whether a Google Scholar profile or another platform is more fitting.
The program catalogs and provides links to create easier access for finding assistance resources across campus. “The research and development team, both in Pitt Research and sponsored programs, have roles to support pulling together successful nomination packages,” Holland said. “Our colleagues in corporate and foundation relations in PAE (Philanthropic & Alumni Engagement) also do a lot of coaching in nomination-package development.”
Sharing success
The Honorific Awards Training Program started in 2021 with three short tutorials for the associate deans for research, which were then built out and expanded significantly.
“We had some focus groups with associate deans for research and some senior faculty that provided us a lot of extremely constructive feedback on the content,” Holland said. “We then worked with the Center for Teaching and Learning on translating that into the Canvas context (and) built that out.”
A small group of beta testers comprising junior faculty who had just been nominated for awards were brought in to look at the program “with fresh eyes.” He said they brought “extremely useful feedback” that was incorporated into a final revision.
“And that is the product that we have now that’s available to everyone,” which can be continuously updated and improved through the Canvas site.
The training program helps fulfill the Plan for Pitt initiative that calls for creating “an intentional architecture to help faculty earn awards that align with their career progression.”
As applications for these awards are “not easily traced,” the University is working on collecting a baseline and launching a new enterprise system to track applications. The plan mentions a “front-end training program,” where faculty can train at all stages on how to “best position to apply and win honorific awards.”
Holland encouraged committee members to use the program and let his team know where improvements could be made.
“We’ll be happy to consider that and figure out how to roll it in,” he said, mentioning the honorific self-reporting form. “When you’re submitting a nomination, whether that’s for yourself or a colleague, we want to know about it (and) when you win something, we also want to know about that.”
Going for it
Rutenbar said the challenge is getting the idea across that promoting research and achievements doesn’t just magically happen.
“The thing we see is that often people are interested to kind of go after these things, but they don’t really know mechanically how,” he said. “One of the big eye openers for lots of people is, ‘Don’t just sit back and wait.’ I literally have a slide with a picture of the tooth fairy on it. I said, ‘This is not how major awards happen.’”
Those who get recognition for themselves, their department, and ultimately their university, are those most inclined to nominate themselves.
“They call their advisor or their department head and say, ‘Hey, I think I’ve got game on this one. Will you nominate me?’ And, you know, wham! Off you go,” Rutenbar said. “So this is all about that, and just the broad landscape of tactical stuff around all of the various parts of awards.
“This is literally … an execution play, as we say,” he added. “We are eminently worthy of a vast number of awards. We’ve just got to have people taking shots on goal.”
Shannon O. Wells is a writer for the University Times. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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