Faculty members have many opportunities to receive recognition for specific achievements, but one award acknowledges their overall teaching contribution, the chairman of the Distinguished Faculty Award Committee said.

On March 2, applications will be due for the Distinguished Faculty Award. This award is presented to one faculty member each year.

Grant Sterling, the chairman of the Distinguished Faculty Award Committee, said the committee members look for people who have benefited the university in a variety of ways over a period of time.

Sterling said applicants are evaluated for their teaching, their research and their service to Eastern as well as to the overall community.

Although students are able to nominate a faculty member for this award, faculty members make most of the nominations, Sterling said.

He said students typically write the letters of support for their professors once another faculty member has decided to nominate them.

The award committee is made up of seven people. There are three members from the Faculty Senate, two students who are usually a part of the Student Senate, one alumnus from the EIU Alumni Association, and one of the previous award winners who is chosen for the committee by President Bill Perry.

David Raybin, a professor of English and literature since 1981, was the 2011 winner of the Distinguished Faculty Award.

“I have taught well, published my research regularly, edited a scholarly journal (The Chaucer Review), and served the university and profession in a wide variety of ways,” Raybin said.

Raybin has also received grants from the Illinois Humanities Council to help fund the annual EIU Literature Conference, and three grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to direct month-long Summer Seminars for Teachers on Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.”

“The award capped my career at Eastern,” Raybin said. “It may have contributed to my being selected as the 2011 Illinois Professor of the Year.”

They usually get less than 50 applicants for the Distinguished Faculty Award each year, Sterling said.

Requirements for the applicants include being a tenured or tenure-track faculty member, and having taught at Eastern for four years.

With the nominee application, they must also submit a letter of nomination, up to three letters of support, and their curriculum vitae.

As chairman of the award committee, Sterling said his job is to check the nominations and make sure all of the material is there before distributing the applications to the committee members.

After each member reviews the applications, a meeting is scheduled where all seven committee members are available to meet and review the applications.

Once the committee members make their decision, they announce their recommendation to be approved by the Faculty Senate.

“This is one of the most prestigious awards that the university gives,” Sterling said. “It is a great honor for our faculty.”

Piper Black can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].