The Office of Academic Affairs awards the permanent, honorific title of Distinguished University Professor on a competitive basis to full tenure-track professors who have truly exceptional records in teaching, research, scholarly or creative work and service.
One to three appointments may be awarded annually to faculty members who have been at Ohio State for at least five years. Ohio Eminent Scholars are not eligible for this award. Distinguished University Professors automatically become members of the President’s and Provost’s Advisory Committee. In addition, recipients are awarded a $30,000 one-time grant to support their academic work and are expected to maintain a regular program of teaching/mentorship, research, scholarly or creative work, and service.
Nomination Process Toolkit for Distinguished University Professor
Recognizes and acknowledges the excellence of Ohio State faculty.
Nomination Information
Nomination period for the 2022-23 awards has closed. Nomination information for the 2023-24 awards will be posted when available.
Department chairs may submit nominations of one or more of their tenure track faculty members to the dean of the college. For colleges that do not have departments, faculty awards committees should submit nominations.
Assemble nomination materials into one PDF in the order listed below (download the nomination packet template):
- Cover letter from Dean or Dean's designee
- Nominator's letter
- Detailed rationale for nomination highlighting teaching/mentorship, research, scholarship or creative works, and service
- Provide norms of the discipline (e.g., numbers of graduate students, funding history, publication history, etc.)
- Explain significance and competitiveness of any national or international honors, awards, or Academy memberships
- Documentation of accomplishments in teaching/mentoring, scholarship, and service
- No more than 5 pages
- Teaching/mentoring
- Examples might include a table with graduate students and their post-graduation positions, a brief summary of student SEI comments, exemplary curricular developments, etc.
- Research, scholarship, or creative works
- Include h-index and the ISI Web of Science value when possible
- If using Google Scholar, identify it as such
- Documentation of rankings of exhibitions
- Multiple books from highly regarded publishers
- Service
- Include information on professional and university service
- Three external evaluation letters
- Nominee's curriculum vitae
Nominators should not seek external evaluations of the nominee’s work. Deans will establish a screening process to review nominations within their colleges and to decide which nomination(s) will be fully documented with three external evaluations. Colleges may submit one new or updated nomination. Colleges with more than 250 faculty members (Engineering; Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences; Medicine; and each of the divisions of Arts and Sciences) may submit two new or updated nominations.
Submit nomination PDF via email to Faculty Affairs (facultyaffairs@osu.edu) with a subject line of "Distinguished University Professor."