Outstanding Scholarship Award

One Outstanding Scholarship Award is given each year to a faculty member* from one of the following colleges in recognition of their excellent record of scholarship and research at Western:

  • College of Business and Economics,
  • Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies,
  • College of Fine and Performing Arts,
  • College of the Environment,
  • Woodring College of Education,
  • Western Libraries

*Please Note: Only Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, or Professors are eligible for this award. (Instructors, Lecturers, Senior Instructors are not eligible. Please check the staff directory for faculty titles.)

Selection Criteria

  1. No person shall receive this award more than once.
  2. Tenure is not a requirement, but the candidate must be a full-time member of the faculty and should have at least three years of service at Western.
  3. The award is based on research and creative activities and materials submitted should address these two areas.
  4. While the award is intended to recognize all of one’s excellence in scholarship while at Western, supporting research and scholarship materials from the candidate shall be limited to no more than five years, but should include the last three.
  5. Nominees will be asked if they wish to be considered, and, if so, will be required to submit supporting materials to the evaluation committee.
  6. Only the name of the winner of the award will be announced on completion of the process; the names of other candidates shall not be published at any time during or after the process.

Award/Recognition

The award recipient will be presented with a Western medallion award at the Celebration of Excellence Awards in May. This award also includes a payment of $2,500, made possible by the Western Washington University Foundation. (Please note: for each payment, the University also contributes approximately $1,553.66 for tax related deductibles plus benefits for a total expenditure of approximately $3,553 per award). 

Award Administration

College of Fine and Performing Arts and Western Libraries Dean’s Office (rotating).

The 2024 award will be administered by the College of Fine and Performing Arts.

Nomination Process

Only WWU faculty members, department chairs, and academic deans may nominate their faculty colleagues for a Scholarship/Research award. Nominations for the 2024 award are now CLOSED. Thank you to those that took the time to nominate someone!

2023

Meg Warren smiling proudly wearing a vivid pink blouse and plaid jacket with a WWU award medallion on a neck ribbon

Meg Warren - Management

Associate Management Professor Meg Warren in the College of Business and Economics is a researcher, keynote speaker, author, and psychologist with expertise in allyship, diversity, inclusiveness, and cultural factors affecting wellbeing. Her award-winning research uses a positive psychology approach to study how individuals from relatively privileged groups can serve as allies to marginalized groups.

Warren has published over 50 journal articles and book chapters, and two books. Many of these projects have involved mentoring students as co-authors. Her research has been covered by over 200 news media outlets, trade news outlets, and government media outlets, and her work has been translated into Italian, Vietnamese, German, and Dutch to reach wide audiences. She has given over 80 conference presentations and served as an invited speaker at numerous companies across a range of industries including consumer products, clothing and apparel, healthcare, financial services, automotives, public services, and property development. She has held such prestigious positions as the founding president of the Work & Organizations Division of the International Positive Psychology Association, and faculty affiliate of the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan.
 

Past Awardees

1 awardee(s) for this year

2022 Awardees

Erika McPhee-Shaw wearing a WWU award medallion

Erika McPhee-Shaw - Environmental Sciences

Erika McPhee-Shaw, a native of Eastern Washington, received her BA in Physics from Dartmouth College and Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Washington. After postdoctoral research at UC Santa Barbara, Dr. McPhee-Shaw was on the faculty at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, SJSU, for 10 years before coming to Western in 2014. She studies ocean physics, coastal circulation, deep subsurface waves and their interactions with continental margin topography, and is an interdisciplinary scientist who often works with marine ecologists and chemists. She is currently co-lead investigator of a $1.3M National Science Foundation funded project studying internal waves and boundary-interior exchange in a fjord-like lake with colleagues at Cornell. This project has provided opportunity to involve graduate and undergraduate students in field work, instrument design, and data analysis. McPhee-Shaw has organized sessions at many national and international conferences over the past two decades, and her leadership has been particularly evident in being an invited speaker at several international conferences on ocean mixing and submarine canyon dynamics, and her election as Vice Chair and Chair of the influential Gordon Research Conference in Coastal Ocean Dynamics.