Celebrating faculty excellence in the areas of research, teaching and service through awards has a long tradition at IU Bloomington — from campus- and university-level awards to some of the most prestigious research-focused awards bestowed by external organizations.

The IUB 2030 strategic plan has brought renewed attention to supporting and recognizing faculty throughout all career stages with both internal and external honors. A primary research pillar objective prioritizes national recognition for faculty, with the aim of increasing the number of IU Bloomington scholars, researchers and artists who receive awards and honors from prestigious organizations.

Cultivating a culture of recognition

The deepened focus on honoring faculty excellence has led to bolstering the infrastructure that supports faculty awards of all kinds.

Cindy Broderick. Photo by Indiana University “We are working to really foster a culture of recognition on campus,” said Cindy Broderick, director of faculty development and recruitment in the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs. “Recognition can come in many different forms and on many different levels, and we have a collective responsibility to develop a culture where we facilitate these recognitions for each other.”

A key part of building that culture includes strategic collaboration among different units to reflect the interconnectedness of faculty award programs. Broderick, who manages campus-level awards through the Office of the Vice President for Faculty and Academic Affairs, is part of a group taking a fresh look at faculty awards. Michael Morrone, executive director of the Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching and a teaching professor at the Kelley School of Business, handles university-level awards. Andrew McLaren, faculty prestigious awards specialist in IU Research, was recently hired in this new position to manage highly prestigious faculty research awards.

While Broderick, McLaren and Morrone each have their own area of focus, their work is deeply connected.

“The three of us are working together to figure out how we help build the scaffolding to ensure that faculty are recognized for their work,” Broderick said. “The first award that someone receives is generally not election into a national academy. We are working to understand how to best move people in all career stages and in all disciplines toward receiving IU-sponsored awards of all levels and then, ultimately, prestigious external awards.”

A complicated landscape

The awards structure at Indiana University is multifaceted. Internal awards may be sponsored by an individual school, the campus or the university in the areas of research, teaching or service. There is a multitude of possibilities for faculty awards from outside entities.

“It’s a very complicated landscape, but there is also a ton of opportunity starting from early in a faculty member’s career and continuing through to later stages,” Morrone said. “It’s important that faculty know there are so many possibilities available for recognizing their work, and it’s important that we are recognizing people in all three areas: teaching, service and research.”

Review of internal awards

Over the past several months, Broderick has led the effort to take a fresh look at the awards infrastructure at IU Bloomington with the goal of ensuring maximum impact. She is currently working with all schools and departments on campus to understand how they identify faculty to nominate for awards.

“We are really in the information-gathering stage now,” she said. “What current systems exist? Are there committees in place at the departmental and school levels? How are nominations for both internal and external awards being cultivated? We want to make our approach more systematic and ensure that the timing of campus- and university-level awards is complementary.”

Michael Morrone. Photo by Indiana University

Broderick is pulling together a group of faculty representatives from different schools and departments to undertake a broader overview of campus-level awards.

“We plan to have a robust conversation about whether the existing awards are what we need right now and how we collectively want to move forward,” she said.

The availability of data plays an increasing role in helping to identify faculty for various awards.

“There’s so much potential with the data we can access from sources like Academic Analytics to identify faculty for various awards,” Morrone said. “It requires more coordination across different units that pay specialized attention to external awards, like Andrew is doing, or to the broad spectrum of campus-level awards, like Cindy administers. This kind of coordination is greatly enhanced by the fact that we have more and more data, as well as more history with these awards.”

Renewed focus on external awards

Andrew McLaren. Photo by Indiana University In his newly created position in IU Research, McLaren is focused on identifying opportunities outside IU to recognize the work of our most distinguished faculty and to support the nomination process.

The most prestigious national and international research-focused awards fall roughly into three different categories:

• Major professional organizations, such as the American Physical Society, sponsor awards that recognize excellence in their respective fields.
• Renowned fellowship programs meant to support the production of faculty research. These are sponsored by organizations such as Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
• Late-career major recognitions, such as election to the National Academies, as well as major international awards, such as the Nobel Prize and the Wolf Prize.

“Supporting our faculty in receiving these highly prestigious awards is a way of showing that what we do here matters,” McLaren said. “People tend to think that the centers of academic excellence are elsewhere. But we have one here. This is a part of the work we need to do to steward that history and keep it alive, not just for ourselves, but for the entire state and beyond.”

Continuing a long tradition of celebrating faculty

While external recognition for our faculty enhances IU’s reputation, Broderick, McLaren and Morrone said they believe strongly that both internal and external recognitions are a vehicle for celebrating the important work that faculty do every day.

“So many of our colleagues would never toot their own horns,” Broderick said. “That recognition can be incredibly important to a faculty member’s experience of IU and within their career.”

One such faculty member is Priscilla Barnes, associate professor of applied health science in the School of Public Health-Bloomington , who received the university-level Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award in 2021.

“Receiving the award was a profound honor, as it validates the importance of working alongside community partners — not simply conducting research within communities but striving to work cooperatively and collaboratively to foster meaningful change,” Barnes said. “It has created opportunities for me to expand community engagement initiatives and community-engaged research.”

Broderick, McLaren and Morrone all see their work as part of a vital tradition that has long been a priority at IU and said they look forward to taking award programs to the next level.

“Faculty awards have been a priority at IU for decades, regardless of what office has led the initiative,” Broderick said. “It’s exciting to be collaborating with two individuals who I know are so committed and passionate about wanting to raise up and support our faculty.”

Caroline Dwyer Gilley is a strategy and innovation specialist in the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President.