The Distinguished Educator Award for Outstanding Mentor recognizes one faculty member at UMB for their role in supporting, encouraging, and promoting a positive and inclusive scholarly and teaching environment, and for contributing to the professional and personal development of graduate and professional students. Mentoring involves not just successfully directing projects, theses, and dissertations, but also providing guidance and motivation in the context of students’ interests, passions, and personal circumstances.

The Distinguished Educator Award for Outstanding Preceptor specifically recognizes one preceptor at UMB who exceeds expectations in precepting students, elevating the standards of teaching and mentorship of our trainees, and providing exceptional service to their profession.

The Distinguished Educator Award for Educational Scholarship/Publication is to recognize scholarly contributions to education which has led to a publication (book, book chapter, or peer reviewed journal article) that contributes to the literature and/or practice of graduate and professional education. Articles and published works may be “submitted", “in-press” or already published works.

Scholarly education can be characterized by: (1) Purposeful planning (clear objectives and advanced preparation), (2) systematic implementation (explicit methods with measurable outcomes and theoretical grounding), (3) effective presentation of results (clear articulation of activities and outcomes), and (4) reflective critique (continuous, stepwise, and critical evaluation aimed at ongoing improvement) as defined by Glassick (CE Glassick, Acad Med. 2000, 75(9), 877-880).

The Distinguished Educator Award for Excellence in Teaching is to recognize outstanding teaching done by our faculty and the sustained positive influence of their teaching on students and advisees/mentees. Great teachers go above and beyond to inspire students and instill learning skills that ultimately prepare the student for a lifetime of learning.