Excellence in Public Service Extension

The D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Public Service Extension Programs was established in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 1983 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.

Purpose

The purpose of the Public Service Extension Award is to foster faculty development by recognizing exceptional creativity and sustained excellence in the development and delivery of research based education and service programs. This includes recognizing relevant local issues and concerns, formulating effective strategies and prescriptions aimed to resolve local problems, and integrating and transferring the vast body of public knowledge contained in universities and colleges to customers, empowering them to better solve their individual problems. The intent of the award is to recognize exceptional achievement in informal education, communications, leadership, program planning, administration, and scholarship at the community level.

The impact of the county agent's achievement should be readily measurable and affirmable by industry, the state, the community, and/or national and international peer assessment.

One Brooks award shall be given each year for excellence in county agent programming. Beginning in 1996, 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, active county Extension faculty holding a public service track appointment in the College, who have been employed for at least five (5) years and have achieved a minimum ranking of Public Service Assistant. Past recipients of the award are not eligible for renomination.

Process and Deadline

Interested and qualified nominees must submit their applications at the link below.

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 public service faculty, to include the previous year's recipient of the Public Service Extension Award, to screen all dossiers and 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.