Reminder: Deadlines Approaching for End-of-Year Awards, Nominations Welcome..

Several committees are now accepting applications for end-of-year awards. Please see the information listed below for specific eligibility requirements and deadlines.

The Education Committee strongly encourages each department to submit at least one nomination for the Glantz and Educational Innovations awards.

 See below for the details on each award. Please share this with colleagues and students.

The Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching

Deadline for Nominations: April 8, 2015.

The Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the education program of School of Public Health. The award is named for our founding dean, who decided to make excellence in education a hallmark of SPH. Focusing on quality in teaching is not always typical of graduate education.

The award is meant to recognize individuals, faculty, or others who have substantially enriched the educational experience for the students at the School. For the purposes of this award, teaching is broadly defined to include superior performance in classroom teaching, innovation, and creativity in course design, commitment to the advising and mentoring of students, and/or excellence in other activities that contribute to student education. The 2015 Scotch Award will be presented at the SPH Commencement ceremony on May 16. The awardee will receive an engraved Revere bowl to commemorate receipt of the award and will also receive a prize of $1,000. The recipient’s name will be engraved on the Scotch Award tray that hangs in the Founder’s Room of the Talbot Building.

The primary purpose of the Scotch Award is to recognize contributions by SPH faculty. All faculty of the School are eligible for this award, including full-time, part-time, and adjunct faculty. Under exceptional circumstances, any individual who is not a member of the faculty may be given this award if he or she has made truly outstanding and sustained contributions to the education program of the School.

Please use this form—2015 Scotch Award Nomination Form—to nominate a teacher or colleague whom you believe fulfills the criteria for this important recognition. As recent winners, Wendy Heiger-Bernays, Taryn Vian, Vicky Parker, James Wolff, and Sophie Godley are not eligible this year. Nominations should be submitted by April 1.

The awardee will be chosen by an ad hoc committee chaired by Mary Murphy-Phillips and comprised of two faculty (recent Scotch Award winners), two current students, and two recent alumni.

 Contact Mary Murphy-Phillips at mcmurph@bu.edu with questions.

2015 Commencement Student Speaker Nominations

Deadline for Nominations: April 8, 2015.

The honor of speaking at the SPH Commencement ceremony is offered annually to a graduating student who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the SPH community. For the purposes of this award, outstanding contributions are broadly defined to include active involvement in the Student Senate, student organizations or other school-wide activities, superior performance in coursework, and commitment to the betterment of the SPH community at large.

Students who graduated in September 2014, January 2015, or are tentatively scheduled to graduate in May 2015 are eligible for nomination. Please use this 2015 Student Speaker Nomination Form to take a moment to nominate a graduating student whom you believe fulfills the criteria for this important recognition. Nominations should be submitted to Mary Murphy-Phillips at mcmurph@bu.edu or in Talbot 208C by April 1.

The awardee will be chosen from the nominees by an ad hoc committee chaired by Mary Murphy-Phillips and comprised of current and graduating students as well as staff members from Student Affairs, Admissions, and the Office of the Registrar.

Contact Mary Murphy-Phillips at mcmurph@bu.edu with questions.

Leonard Glantz Award for Academic Excellence

Deadline for Nomination of Students by Faculty: April 8, 2015.

The Education Committee is currently seeking nominations from the faculty for the Leonard Glantz Award for Academic Excellence, which will be presented to a student with outstanding intellectual and academic abilities at the SPH commencement on May 16.

The award is presented annually to honor Leonard Glantz, professor of health law, bioethics, and human rights, who served the School as associate dean of academic affairs for 30 years.

The award recognizes a student whose academic achievement typifies the high standards set by Professor Glantz. The recipient will be selected by members of the Education Committee for exceptional academic performance, creative and critical thinking, ability to integrate different areas of public health, intellectual curiosity and motivation, and a clear potential for future intellectual and creative contributions to public health.

The 2015 Glantz Award will be presented with a $1,000 cash prize. All MPH graduates (September 2014, January 2015, May 2015) of the School are eligible for this award. All SPH faculty are invited to nominate a student for this important recognition.

Nominations should be submitted to Vanessa Edouard (vbe@bu.edu) by April 1. Please be sure to include a brief paragraph discussing why you believe this student should receive the award.

Questions? Contact Vanessa Edouard at vbe@bu.edu.

Fendall Public Health Writing Award

Deadline for Nominations: April 8, 2015.

The Fendall Award for Excellence in Public Health Writing is an annual, school-wide award open to currently enrolled MPH students in all concentrations.

The Nominating Process 

All faculty (full-time faculty on modified or unmodified tracks, part-time, or adjunct) are invited to nominate papers by current MPH students or recent MPH graduates. Recent graduates include students who graduated in the last year September 2014, January 2015, May 2015). The paper must have been written when the graduate was a student. Only papers written in the last 12 months will be considered.

Please submit your nominations to Vanessa Edouard at vbe@bu.edu. The nominating faculty member must send a cover email with the graduate’s paper attached. The cover email need not be long but should clearly make the case for the nomination. Faculty other than the nominating faculty may endorse a selection by email, again to vbe@bu.edu, and state why they feel the paper is excellent.

Criteria for Nominating and Selection

The criteria that faculty should use in considering whether or not a paper merits nomination are:

• clarity and elegance of expression;
• compelling logic or argument;
• balanced use of evidence and opinion;
• a significant topic;
• concise expression;
• in the judgment of the nominating faculty member, an extremely high-quality written work that does not exceed typical journal limits as to number of words. The word limit, excluding references and including title and abstract (if there is one), is 4,000 words; and
• a single author.

Katherine M. Skinner Memorial Prize for Commitment to the Study of Women’s Health Issues

Nomination Deadline: April 8, 2015.

Eligibility: All recent graduates (September 2014, January 2015, May 2015) of the School are eligible for this award. All SPH faculty are invited to nominate a student for this important recognition.

This prize was established to honor the memory of Katherine M. Skinner, a sociologist and former member of the Health Services/Health Policy and Management faculty. Skinner had one of the first research grants in the country to study the health and well-being of women veterans. She discovered disparities in access to care for women soldiers, as well significant sexual violence in the military. Skinner was a woman of courage and conviction and felt it her personal responsibility to speak on behalf of these women who had years before served their country. This prize was established to honor Skinner and her many accomplishments, to support her love of education, to promote her passion to improve lives through scientific research, and to recognize her special interest in improving women’s health and health care. It is awarded annually to a student at SPH who has shown dedication to the study of women’s health issues.

Nominations should be submitted via the online form by April 1. The award recipient will be chosen by faculty from the Department of Health Policy and Management.

Questions? Contact Kelly Smith (kellysm@bu.edu)

BUSPH Educational Innovation Award

Nomination Deadline: May 1, 2015.

Message from the Education Committee: SPH values its reputation for innovative teaching and is proud to acknowledge excellence in teaching and learning through the SPH Educational Innovation Award. This award recognizes creative contributions to the development of tools for the innovative presentation of coursework, new curriculum design, and the creation of an improved teaching and learning environment.

The Educational Innovation Award is designed to reward faculty who are prepared to challenge the traditional ways of doing things, to try out new approaches, and to seek improvements in the way teaching is delivered and learning is achieved. This award specifically focuses on unique course design that increases student interest and drives achievement. Its aim is to enhance the status of teaching, encourage innovation, and disseminate good practice.

Eligibility

SPH full- and part-time faculty are eligible for this award. A faculty member who wins the award is ineligible for a period of five years following the award.

Nomination Process

Nominations may be made by faculty, staff, or students. Nominations should include instructor name, course or courses that the innovation has been applied in, and the primary innovation (technique or strategy) that the instructor has developed, as well as a description of the impact of the innovation on student learning in the relevant course or courses. Additionally, the innovation should

• align with the taxonomy of learning identified  in the SPH educational framework (foundational knowledge, skills and application, connection and integration, professionalism, and leadership and interpersonal relations);
• impact the quality of graduate education (new course material, curriculum improvements);
• have potential for implementation more broadly across SPH; and
• be sustainable.

Nominations are due by May 1, 2015. The winner will be determined by the Education Committee. Nominations should be sent by email to Vanessa Edouard at vbe@bu.edu.

Award

This award attracts recognition from faculty, administration, staff, and students and comes with a financial prize of $500 for the faculty member. The award will be presented at the annual John McCahan Medical Campus Education Day.

Past Recipients

2014 – Jacey Greece, Community Health Sciences

2013 – Sophie Godley, Community Health Sciences

2012 – Malcolm Bryant, International Health

2011 – James Wolff, International Health

2010 – Michael Siegel, Community Health Sciences

2009 – Wayne LaMorte, Epidemiology