NCHC Distinguished Leadership Award

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Description

Established in 2025, the NCHC Distinguished Leadership Award recognizes sustained outstanding and effective executive leadership contributing to the progress of honors colleges and programs and having impact at the local, regional, or national level. The award recognizes and promotes interest and appreciation for sustained careers with superior leadership and worthy contributions that advance the role of honors education in alignment with the mission, goals, and strategic initiatives of the NCHC.

Award amount: $2,000 donated to the recipient's institution's honors program in recipient's name.

The recipient will be invited to speak and receive an engraved plaque at the NCHC Annual Conference Awards Ceremony.

Purpose

The purpose of the NCHC Distinguished Leadership Award is:

  1. To honor institutional officers outside of the honors program/college structure such as Presidents or Chief Academic Officers who, through individual leadership and sustained effort, have made worthy contributions to the operations of effective honors education and to advancing the role of honors education within the college or university or the regional, national, or international landscape.
  2. To recognize the responsible and influential role of those administrators in developing, sustaining, and advancing successful honors colleges and programs.
  3. To stimulate the planning, execution, and support of honors colleges and programs which are essential to a meaningful honors education.

Rules

Nominations for the NCHC Distinguished Leadership Award are accepted between March 15 through May 15, 2026.

Note: You must have a Reviewr account set up to proceed with nominating an individual for the NCHC Distinguished Leadership Award. 

Eligibility Criteria

  1. NCHC encourages excellence in leadership and administration. The award recognizes distinguished contributions in honors education for 3 or more years.
  2. The nominee must be a leader of an NCHC member institution who has actively worked to further honors education. The nominee may not be a previous recipient of the award.
  3. Nominees should be a University or College President/Chancellor or Provost/Chief Academic Officer.
  4. The nominee should have demonstrated a sustained commitment to Honors education. The impact may be seen in:
    • Administrative leadership and continuing efforts in promoting excellent effective honors education and advancing the role of honors education
    • Operational excellence of the honors college or program, demonstrated by financial commitment to honors, the dedication of other resources, or by advocacy for honors with donors, corporations or other parties
    • Building connections, interactions and partnerships between the honors college or program and the larger university/college/community or with community partners, businesses or nonprofits
    • Promoting, sustaining and growing inclusive excellence within the Honors community, fostering a safe, positive, productive and bias-free environment
    • Developing and inspiring others to achieve extraordinary results through innovative processes, mentorship, civic engagement
    • Support that resulted in substantial progress for honors education, honors professionals and faculty, or that enhanced the status of the honors unit based on research, teaching, outreach, publications, grants, or academic programs
  5. Nominations can be made beyond this scope and will be evaluated for eligibility on a case-by-case basis.
  6. This is a career achievement award and can be awarded to any given individual only once.
  7. Nominators must be institutional members of NCHC. Nominators should be active members of NCHC (participate in programming and/or serve on committees in person or virtually) or in their regional Honors organization.
  8. The recipient should still be serving at the institution by which they were nominated. Recipients are expected to attend the national NCHC conference.

Nomination Process

The nomination process includes the following:

  1. Nominee's abbreviated curriculum vitae not to exceed five pages.
  2. Biographical Summary (not to exceed 400 words) – key achievements and activities of the nominee, nominee’s personal philosophy regarding Honors education, suitable for the printed program for the presentation ceremony.
  3. A nomination letter (not to exceed 500 words) indicating the reason for nominating this individual. This letter should identify major Honors educational innovations supported by the nominee in line with the NCHC shared principles and practices, the major contributions on which the nomination is based, such as support for the faculty and staff, programs, and resources and explain why the nominee is especially qualified to receive this award. Evidence of college or program improvements or sustaining commitments may be included.
  4. Two additional letters of support. Letters of support may be obtained from administrators, faculty and staff reporting to the nominee or from an honors alumni. Letters of support from outside of the institution should support the impact of leadership and administration on honors education.
  5. Nominees not selected for the award in the year of the initial nomination are kept on file for automatic consideration again the subsequent year, without requiring renomination. At the time for the Call for Nominations each year, nominators of previous unsuccessful nominations have the option of updating and resubmitting their earlier nominations.