This page is to facilitate discussion about establishing a new award at SIRLS for the "Most Progressive" Faculty Member.

Please add your thoughts and comments about the award and its criteria!

Project Manager of craftiness - Sara

Updates from 28 January 2009 meeting

Please add information to the bullets or discussion below. If you find other awards with solid criteria, paste in a link.

I. Award Criteria:

• There will be four (or so) categories possible, where examples of progressiveness of the potential nominee must fit in to at least two.
  • Categories (so far):
  1. Progressive research
  2. Activism and community work or outreach
  3. Teaching style (interactions with students, involvement, integration of technology)
  4. Professional development (working to incorporate progressive values into professional career)
• No one can win consecutively.
• Examples, or evidence, for nominations must be current; evidence is invalid if from a year ago. Ideally, and because this award is given on a semester-by-semester basis, examples will be from the current semester.
• There will be one award for full-time faculty and one for adjunct faculty.

II. Other information:

• The awards will be crafts, preferably out of recycled materials. Members interested in making the awards will have a craft night. Name of winner and name of award will be visible on each award. This information was voted on.
• At the graduation ceremonies, the PLG Co-President will present the award for Adjunct Faculty, and the President will present the award for Full-Time Faculty. (If for some reason, neither can present the award, a volunteer from the PLG officers will present the awards).
• We will want to develop our criteria more, and will look at other award criteria for ideas... such as awards for progressive teaching, and more.

Some of my ideas, bullet-point style:

• I think nominations should be based on information in courses or on research that is of a progressive nature. I don't think it would be fair to say, for example, that someone who teaches a cultural competencies course should win because they discuss diversity -- a faculty member might teach a technology-focused course because that is their expertise and/or someone needs to cover that area, but might not cover topics traditionally considered progressive, so we should try to make all aspects as even as possible.
• As far as how the process works, I would suggest Kristen or myself sends out an email listing all full-time faculty and all adjuncts to the PLG listserv, and then nominations can be made. When a nomination is made, it should be backed up by examples or evidence, and not simply a vote for a favorite; after a number of nominations have been made with examples listed, then we can all vote. The full-time faculty member and the adjunct faculty member with the most votes after that process would win. What do you all think of that?
• I also think we can be creative with the awards... we could make them kind of crafty and have unique frames, or we could make them look more official with standard framing.

Those are my ideas so far, hope you all will contribute! -Nicole

• I  think that we could also look at an instructor's teaching style in terms of progressiveness...how they interact with students, how they might have a progressive approach to education...if this is too nebulous, I'll try to think of some concrete examples --Kristen

Nicole, I like your vision for the overall process.  If we want to get very objective about how we choose the recipient, my suggestion would be to clarify exactly what principles we're basing it on, and then as we come up with nominations, we would then provide the concrete behavioral indicators that would show that principles being put into action.  The primary principles I think that really shape a progressive librarian and show what we stand for include a commitment to social justice, intellectual freedom, and respect for diversity.  The professor who receives the reward aught to, as Kristen suggested, demonstrate the principles in his or her teaching style, interactions with students, and also as an activist within the community and the LIS field.  I think this would help us clarify the criteria on which we're basing our choice. -Molly