Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations Awards

Eligibility

The CAFA Awards are open to all academic staff in Alberta’s public universities. 

Summary

There are four awards:

CAFA Distinguished Academic Award

Recognizing an academic staff member, or group of staff members, who through their research and/or other scholarly, creative, or professional activities have made an outstanding contribution to the wider community beyond the university.

CAFA Distinguished Academic Early Career Award

Recognizing an academic staff member at an early stage of their career, who through their research and/or other scholarly, creative, or professional activity has made an outstanding contribution to the wider community beyond the university.

CAFA Distinguished Teaching Award

The purpose of the Award is to recognize an academic staff member who excels in teaching and goes above and beyond in their role as a teacher and made an outstanding contribution to the wider community beyond the university.

CAFA Distinguished Teaching Award for Precarious Faculty

The purpose of the Award is to recognize a precarious academic staff member who excels in teaching. (Note: the focus of this award is teaching-within-employment: while awards often privilege those who go “above and beyond” their employment requirements, we believe that such a focus can contribute to the exploitation of precarious employees. In this case, we are particularly interested therefore in innovative classroom techniques, stories of pedagogical success, and so on, within the employment situation).

Each Award recipient will receive a cheque for $2,000 and an original piece of artwork.

Application deadlines

Program application deadline

Nominations (a signed pdf copy of the package should be e-mailed to admin@cafa-ab.ca)

All Nominations for the Awards must include the following:

1) A completed Nomination Form:  

Link to Nomination Form

2) A Nomination Letter (please limit to one page):  Academic Awards – describing specifically how the research and/or other scholarly, creative, or professional activity of the nominee(s) have made a contribution to the community beyond the university.  Teaching Award – describe the contribution of the nominee towards their students and the broader community.  Nominations from any source are welcome.

 [N.B. The work of the Selection Committee is dependent on the quality and completeness of the information it receives in the Nomination Letters.]

3) Two (2) Letters of Reference (please limit each letter to one page).

 [N.B. Letters of Reference should be from persons qualified to comment on the research, teaching and/or other scholarly, creative, or professional activity of the nominee(s), and the contribution it has made to the community outside the university.

For the teaching award (for clarification) – three letters (the nomination letter plus two reference letters). At least one of the reference letters must be from an academic colleague, but the second one can be from another source that you think best fits your application. The letters should address your teaching contributions both inside and outside the classroom, as well as relevant information on your teaching philosophy, innovative pedagogical methods, and curriculum design].

4) The current CV (last 5 years of information) of the nominee(s).

 Nominations for the CAFA Awards must be received by April 30, 2024.