Scholarly Achievement Award Policy

Purpose: The purpose of this award is to recognize the involvement of faculty members in scholarly pursuits.

Eligibility: The award is open to all nursing faculty who teach at AvilaUniversity, Research College of Nursing/Rockhurst University or WilliamJewellCollege.Faculty members will be eligible for the award once every two years.These awards will be given to faculty member’s who have made a positive difference in scholarly activities and includes a $1,000 honorarium. The Nursing Program Administrator, Nursing Dean and/or the appropriate committee should nominate and recommend the recipient of the award. The Nursing Program Administrator, Nursing Dean and/or appropriate committee invites all teaching faculty to submit nominations for the annual Scholarly Achievement Award. Faculty members may also self-nominate.

Scholarly Achievement Award: The focus of the Award for Scholarship is on the 'Scholarship of Discovery', 'Scholarshipof Practice' and 'Scholarship of Integration' as defined by the American Association ofColleges of Nursing in the Position Statement on Defining Scholarship for the Disciplineof Nursing. The following definition and standards are quoted from this positionstatement.

Definition of Scholarship in Nursing: Scholarship in nursing can be defined as thoseactivities that systematically advance the teaching, research, and practice of nursingthrough rigorous inquiry that

1) is significant to the profession,

2) is creative,

3) can be documented,

4) can be replicated or elaborated, and

5) can be peer-reviewed through various methods.

This definition is applied in the following standards that describe scholarship in nursing.

Standards:
Scholarship of Discovery
The scholarship of discovery is inquiry that produces the disciplinary and professionalknowledge that is at the very heart of academic pursuits (Boyer, 1990). Within nursing,the scholarship of discovery reflects the unique perspective of nursing that "takes anexpanded view of health by emphasizing health promotion, restoration, andrehabilitation, as well as a commitment to caring and comfort (AACN, 1998, p.1)." Thescholarship of discovery takes the form of primary empirical research, historical research,theory development and testing, methodological studies, and philosophical inquiry andanalysis. It increasingly is interdisciplinary and collaborative in nature, acrossprofessional groups and within nursing itself.

Examples of Documentation of the Quality of Integrative Scholarship

  • Peer-reviewed publications of research, policy analysis, case studies, integrativereviews of the literature, and others
  • Copyrights, licenses, patents, or products for sale
  • Published books
  • Positive peer evaluations of contributions to integrative scholarship
  • Reports of interdisciplinary programs or service projects
  • Interdisciplinary grant awards
  • Presentations
  • Policy papers designed to influence organizations or governments

Source: Position Statement on Defining Scholarship for the Discipline of Nursing from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing

Criteria for Candidacy:

  1. Research and presentation/publication must be completed during the year immediately preceding that in which the award is given.
  2. Only one award will be given for any one project; subsequent nominations must be for substantially different projects.
  3. Faculty members will be eligible for the award only once every two years.

Process for Nomination and determination of recipient: Submit the following information to the Nursing Program Administrator, Nursing Dean and/or appropriate committee by November 1:

  1. Completed Scholarly Achievement Award Application form.
  2. A short essay from nominee that describes how the nominee meets at least one of the three standards (discovery, practice, integrative) of scholarship in nursing (no more than one typed page).
  3. Copy of the scholarly work (e.g. written peer evaluations, articles published)
  4. Curriculum Vita
  5. Letter of support from a peer

The Nursing Program Administrator, Nursing Dean and/or appropriate committee will review all applications. The Nursing Program Administrator or Nursing Dean must forward their final recommendation to The Research Foundation and it must be received by January 1.