Excellence in Diversity

The D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Diversity was established in 2021 to honor University of Georgia alumnus D.W. Brooks who devoted his professional life to improving the quality of society through continued service and support of agriculture, agribusiness, and the environment. Mr. Brooks was a graduate and faculty member of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

The Purpose of the award is to recognize outstanding accomplishments of Faculty who have contributed to diversity and inclusion efforts at the University of Georgia, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. This award celebrates those who have implemented policies, procedures, and/or programs to enhance diversity. Diversity includes age, race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, language, religion, creed, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and disability. The impact of the faculty's achievement should be readily measurable and affirmable through peer assessment, by industry, state or local governmental officials.

Normally, one Brooks award shall be given in alternate years (beginning in 2020) for excellence in diversity. Beginning in 2021, the recipient shall receive a plaque and a $5,000 cash award from the D.W. Brooks Endowment Fund.

Eligibility

Eligibility for the award shall be limited to current tenure-track faculty who have been employed in a tenure-track position for at least five (5) years at the time the award is received. Past recipients of the award are not eligible for renomination.

Process and Deadline

Each academic unit may submit the dossier of one nominee to the Office of the Dean and Director. Each department may develop its own procedures for identifying all potentially qualified applicants, but such a procedure must include a review of all applicants by a designated peer faculty review committee. The nomination must be endorsed and forwarded to the Dean and Director by the department head or designated senior faculty representative.

All nominations should be received by the deadline of August 1.

All nominations should be completed online via this Qualtrics survey.

Online you will be asked to upload the following documents:

a written statement addressing the nominee's worthiness for consideration (not to exceed three double spaced pages)
CV/Dossier – Please note that CVs should not exceed 30 pages in length.
A minimum of 3 and no more than a maximum of 5 supporting letters from students and professional peers within, and external to, the College.

The Brooks Award Review Committee will review all dossiers and recommend to the Chair of the Executive Committee the recipient for the annual award. The Chair of the Executive Committee will forward the name of the nominee to the Dean and Director. Only the Dean and Director shall make public the name of the recipient.

Candidates who were not chosen for the award are welcome to update their packets and submit for the following year.

Award Review Committee

The Dean and Director shall appoint annually a review committee of senior faculty, including the previous year's recipient of the Global Programs Award, to screen all dossiers and to make recommendations to the Executive Committee. All votes shall be by secret ballot, and shall be recorded and maintained by the Executive Committee. If the committee does not deem any applications suitable for a category, they may choose to forgo awarding the respective category for that year. Any application that does not meet basic guidelines as outlined on the DW Brooks webpage is subject to disqualification.

Presentation

The award will be presented at the D.W. Brooks Lecture and Awards ceremony. Information about award recipients will be archived on the CAES website.