Excellence in Community Engagement

The UMass Lowell (UML) Award for Excellence in Community Engagement recognizes faculty accomplishments that demonstrate community collaboration, institutional impact and deeply engaged, high-quality learning.

Eligibility

• The nominee must be a full-time faculty member at UMass Lowell and currently in a tenure, teaching, or clinical-track position. Self-nominations are welcome.
• Nominations should clearly demonstrate how the individual has led an effort, initiative, or project to promote community engagement in areas including but not limited to:
  • volunteerism
  • community-based learning or research, outreach, partnerships,
  • and/or curricular engagement.

Criteria for Award

• Establishes and/or sustains community initiatives benefiting UMass Lowell and external communities.
• Contributes professional expertise to support community defined goals through workshops, training, or events.
• Works with community partners to expand access to educational and lifelong learning opportunities.
• Develops initiatives that enrich lives and prepare students as engaged citizens.

Please visit the detailed evaluation rubric on the Faculty Excellence Awards landing page.

Application Process

Any full-time faculty member may nominate a colleague or themselves for this award. The deadline for applications is April 3, 2026. All submissions must be made online through the Faculty Excellence Awards portal. The submission must include:

• a short statement (500-1,000 words) describing the applicant’s community engagement philosophy, the impact on students, and how the applicant meets the award criteria;
• three letters of support that contain specific examples of the applicant’s activities that are aligned with the review criteria:
  • a letter from the nominator or, in the case of a self-nomination, a letter from a colleague familiar with the nominee’s community engagement contributions
  • two letters from students – the letters can be from current student(s) or former student(s) who graduated from UML within the past five years
  • Note: A single individual may write no more than one support letter for each award category.

The Faculty Excellence Committee will meet to review the nominations and make a recommendation to the Provost or designee.

Award Winners

The winner of this award will be announced in April 2026. The winner will be invited to present a lightning talk on their community engagement initiatives at the Fall 2026 Faculty Symposium. The winner will also receive a $1,000 award.

For questions, please email: Faculty_Success@uml.edu.