Frequently asked questions about the Faculty Outreach Award, Emerging Faculty Outreach Award, and the Community Engagement and Scholarship Award.
The Faculty Outreach Award recognizes an individual faculty member for his/her body of work in and significant contribution to outreach and engaged scholarship. They have extended their scholarship to external constituents resulting in significant impact on individuals, communities, or organizations. The Community Engagement and Scholarship Award recognizes a Penn State engaged scholarship project or initiative that exemplifies an engaged institution as defined in the Kellogg Commission Report Returning to Our Roots: The Engaged Institution. The report lays out seven guiding characteristics of an engaged institution: responsiveness, respect for partners, academic neutrality, accessibility, integration, coordination, and resource partnerships.
There is no restriction on applying for both; however, the two awards are recognizing exceptional but different academic scholarship with different criteria for each.
For the Faculty Outreach Award, only full-time faculty members, including librarians, at all locations, whose primary responsibilities are teaching, research, and/or service, are eligible. See Faculty Senate rules for the definition of “University Faculty.”
For the Community Engagement and Scholarship Award, faculty or staff members, or a team of faculty and staff, may nominate a project; however, a lead faculty or staff must be identified on the application form.
Both award winners will be recognized at the University Faculty Staff Awards luncheon, hosted by the President, and awarded a $1,000 stipend. The winning Community Engagement and Scholarship Award project also becomes Penn State’s submission for the Northeast region W.K. Kellogg Outreach Scholarship Award, sponsored by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU). Regional winners receive a stipend of $6,000 and advance to compete for the C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award. The national award includes a stipend of $20,000.
Yes, the first Faculty Outreach Award winner was selected in 1998, and a stellar group of outstanding faculty has received the award since that time. Visit the Past Recipients of the Penn State Award for Faculty Outreach page to learn more.
The Penn State Community Engagement and Scholarship Award was launched in 2009, and the W.K. Kellogg Outreach Scholarship and C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement awards were launched in 2007. Since then, a number of outstanding projects have received the award. See the Past Recipients of the Community Engagement and Scholarship Award to learn more.
Nomination forms with supporting nomination materials should be submitted by email as one PDF file to COEAwards@outreach.psu.edu. If you include digitized collateral with the application, please provide links for online viewing.
The request for applications for the regional award is detailed on the Association for Public and Land-Grant Universities website. Information concerning the national award competition are included as part of the instructions for the regional award.