Each year, The Graduate School recognizes the important contributions of graduate students to the excellence of the University with four renowned awards:
Awardees, 2011-12
Awardees, 2010-11
Awardees, 2009-10
Awardees, 2008-09
Awardees, 2007-08
Awardees, 2006-07
Awardees, 2005-06
Awardees, 2004-05
Awardees, 2003-04
The Award for Excellence in Teaching honors graduate teaching assistants and instructors of record who have demonstrated exceptional service to Binghamton University’s undergraduates. Nominations are invited from all graduate programs, and recipients of the award represent a variety of teaching approaches in diverse subjects.
Awards are given once a year to ten to fifteen graduate students who have been nominated by their department and selected by a panel consisting of faculty and a representative of The Graduate School. Teaching Excellence awardees receive a gift and a certificate of achievement. They are also recognized in Inside Binghamton University and, if graduating in the academic year, in the commencement program.
Nominations will be made by the program’s graduate director. Each program may nominate only two graduate students per year.
Nomination packets must include:
Nomination packets may also include:
Graduate directors will receive nomination information from The Graduate School. Submit nomination packets electronically to The Graduate School by the deadline listed in the Awards Calendar.
The Award for Excellence in Research honors the important contributions graduate students make to research at the University and the wide variety of approaches they take to the advancement of knowledge.
Awards are given once a year to ten to fifteen graduate students. Awardees are nominated by their department and selected by a panel consisting of faculty and a representative of The Graduate School. Research Excellence awardees will receive a gift and a certificate of the achievement. They are also recognized in Inside Binghamton University and the commencement program.
Nominations will be made by the program’s graduate director. Each program may nominate only two graduate students per year.
Nomination packets must contain:
Graduate directors will receive nomination information from The Graduate School. Submit nomination packets electronically to The Graduate School by the deadline listed in the Awards Calendar.
The Award for Excellence in Service/Outreach honors graduate students who distinguish themselves in service to their departments/academic programs, schools, and/or the University. The award also recognizes students who have used their graduate education to make outstanding contributions to the community beyond the University. While outreach activities of all types represent important contributions to society, the Excellence Awards for Outreach are intended to honor outreach of a professional nature. Nominations are invited from all graduate programs, and recipients represent a variety of service and outreach activities across the University and community.
Awards are given once a year to ten to fifteen graduate students. Awardees are nominated by their department and selected by a panel consisting of graduate students, faculty and a representative of The Graduate School. Excellence in Service and Outreach awardees receive a gift and a certificate of achievement. They are also recognized in Inside-BU and the commencement program.
Nominations will be made by the program’s graduate director. Each program may nominate two graduate students per year.
Nomination packets must contain:
Graduate directors will receive nomination information from The Graduate School. Submit nomination packets electronically to The Graduate School by the deadline listed in the Awards Calendar.
The Distinguished Dissertation Award will be for PhD and EdD dissertations defended and submitted to The Graduate School in each calendar year (e.g., 2011). The selection process will occur in the following spring semester (e.g., Spring 2012).
The Distinguished Dissertation Award recognizes original work that makes an unusually significant contribution to the discipline. Both methodological and substantive quality will be judged. Awards will be given each year in four broad disciplinary areas: 1) Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering; 2) Social Sciences; 3) Humanities and Fine Arts; and 4) Biological and Life Sciences. Note that Education, Management and some Nursing topics fall in Social Sciences, and other Nursing topics, in Life Sciences. The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) uses these categories for its annual national dissertation awards. Recipients of the Distinguished Dissertation Award will receive an honorarium of $500 and may be nominated by the University for national dissertation awards, such as the CGS national award.
Binghamton University is competitive for such awards: In 2006, Paul Collins, a former student of Professor Wendy Martinek in the Department of Political Science, won the CGS Social Science Dissertation Award. He received a check for $1,000 and was invited to give a 15-minute presentation at the awards luncheon at the annual CGS meeting before approximately 400 graduate deans. The list of universities of the former recipients is more or less the top 50 public and private research universities in the United States.
The process described below is designed to identify dissertations that make unusually significant contributions to their disciplines. The procedures are aligned with those of national competitions for dissertation awards. In that way, Binghamton University's Distinguished Dissertation Award Committee also vets dissertations for submission to national competitions.
Each department/program/unit may nominate only one dissertation. Units are requested to nominate dissertations of truly superior quality and unusual distinction. A minimal qualification would be that at least part of the dissertation is of publishable quality in its submitted form.
Nomination for the award must be made by the unit's Graduate Director. It is expected that the unit's graduate committee has vetted the dissertation being nominated. The nomination must be received electronically by The Graduate School, by 5:00 p.m. on the first Monday in April for the year's competition. Students are eligible if they graduated with the PhD or EdD degree in the calendar year prior to the spring competition. Prior to nomination, the dissertation must have been completed and submitted electronically to ProQuest via The Graduate School.
Nominees: The re-written abstract should frame the work in terms of the "big picture," and the ideas, examples and conclusions should focus on how the dissertation significantly addresses the problem or question. If the dissertation consists of several published papers or manuscripts, there should be an introduction in the dissertation that frames the chapters within a larger objective or question, and a final synthesis in the dissertation. If there are co-authors on any of the chapters, the role of each author should be explained in a preface, introduction, or appendix of the dissertation.
Letter writers: The letters of support should explain the original and substantial contribution to the discipline made by the dissertation. Letters should avoid jargon and explain the value of the work in a way that passages would be suitable for publication in Inside Binghamton University. If portions of the dissertation have been published, letter writers should indicate the tier of the journal. If there are co-authors on any chapters, letter writers should address the contribution of the nominee.
The Distinguished Dissertation Awards Committee is drawn from Graduate Council members and is chaired by the Associate Dean of The Graduate School. The committee will review the nomination packets. It will then select a subset as finalists. The finalists will be asked to submit their dissertations electronically. From the finalists, the committee will make its recommendations for the awards.
For the Nominee
For Faculty
For Letter Writers
Available here.
