University Awards for Student Success

The President and Provost’s University Awards for Student Success Champions recognize staff, faculty, and student employees for exemplary work in student success.  With the President’s Three Rs—Recruitment, Retention, and Relationships—as their foundation, these awards recognize nominees’ contributions to programs and services that significantly support and impact student success metrics and student satisfaction.

The award categories are:

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Award Descriptions

Exemplary Service

This award recognizes student employees and professional staff in the Division of Student Success for service to students and/or others in the university community.

The focus of this award is for service to students; however, exemplary service is not limited to any one group of people or limited instances. High level service is an everyday, every interaction experience.

Exemplary service is consistent, attentive, respectful, clear, and thorough. The end result is that a person’s problem or question is not only resolved or answered, but they are left with a clear idea of what to expect and a great feeling about the interaction. People aren’t merely pointed to the next door, they are walked there. Questions are not merely answered, they are anticipated; we listen so attentively that we answer the unasked question. We set proper expectations and then deliver beyond the expectation. To paraphrase a cliché, high-level service seeks not merely to satisfy but to delight.

Exemplary Collaboration

This award recognizes faculty, staff, or organizational units outside of the Division of Student Success who have made significant collaborative contributions to our work.

An exemplary collaborator doesn’t merely “help out.” They take an appropriate level of shared ownership for the tasks and results of the collaboration. They are willing, adaptable, and supportive. They contribute ideas and resources. They make it easy for others to work with them. These characteristics make them sought after collaborators.

Ashley McGinley Award for Exemplary Tutoring

This award recognizes tutors and Supplemental Instruction (SI) Leaders who best exemplify the many positive qualities, skills, and behaviors that it takes to excel as a tutor.

Exemplary tutors challenge, support, and encourage their students. They lead students to develop the skills they need, to not only be successful in their classes but to have their own experience of success so that they develop a genuine and deserved sense of confidence in their skills and knowledge. In this way, students become independent learners and interdependent members of their communities, whether academic, professional, or social.

To accomplish these things, exemplary tutors demonstrate a plethora of skills, abilities, and characteristics. They are empathetic, analytical, insightful, always adaptable and clear, challenging, encouraging, supportive, and creative leaders who help their peers achieve their potential.

Exemplary Leadership

This award recognizes professional and student staff at the university who demonstrate exemplary leadership whether their leadership comes from a recognized leadership position or from within the organization.

Exemplary leadership does not require positional authority; it can come from anywhere within an organization.

Exemplary leaders communicate and embody the values, principles, vision, and goals of the organization. They inspire others through both word and deed to embrace and realize these things. They build trust and consensus, tapping into intrinsic motivations through open dialogue and appropriate levels of transparency. They listen attentively, communicate clearly, and encourage those around them, ultimately making those around them better, allowing them to achieve more than they thought possible. They root out and remove problems so that they and others can be successful. Exemplary leaders are not without their doubts, but they ultimately not only exude confidence, they transmit that confidence to others. Importantly, exemplary leaders take responsibility, not only for their own actions, but for the results of their and their team’s efforts. Finally, exemplary leaders are consistent. This doesn’t mean they are without error, but generally speaking, they embody these characteristics and perform these actions regularly and routinely.

Exemplary Advising

This award recognizes Academic Advisors who best exemplify the many positive qualities and practices that distinguish the nominee as an outstanding Academic Advisor.

Exemplary Academic Advisors provide comprehensive proactive academic advising that facilitates student academic success, retention, and timely movement to degree completion. They possess strong interpersonal skills, as well as mastery of institutional policies, practices, and regulations. Exemplary Academic Advisors are available and approachable, while demonstrating a caring and helpful attitude toward advisees and campus partners. They promote academic advising on campus and proactively create academic advising interactions, in addition to utilizing campus networks in order to make appropriate student referrals.  They also participate in Wright State and University Academic Advising events and trainings, engaging in opportunities to grow and improve as student success professionals.   

Such stellar Academic Advisors demonstrate skills in both verbal and non-verbal communication, listening, questioning, service, negotiation, problem-solving, decision making, assertiveness, social awareness/empathy, responsibility/accountability, and self-management.

Exemplary Teaching

This award recognizes faculty who have made significant contributions to student success outcomes in- and out of the classroom.

An exemplary faculty strives to impact student outcomes that lead to improved course completion, increased student engagement, student persistence, and decreased time-to-degree.