ACPA Excellent Contribution to the ACPA Strategic Priorities Award

ACPA has identified 6 strategic goals: Career Development, Professional Development; Leadership in Higher Education, Social Justice, Research and Scholarship and Association Performance and Excellence. In addition, ACPA has more recently focused on racial justice and decolonization, hoping to specifically target efforts toward reducing the oppression of communities of color at the intersections of their identities, knowing that all oppressions are linked and that the work is ongoing.  The purpose of the Excellence in Contributions to the ACPA Strategic Priorities is to highlight the work done by an entity in furthering one goal in a substantial way or affording time and attention to multiple initiatives focusing on multiple strategic goals.

Excellence in Research and Scholarship

Research and scholarship have long been the lifeblood of ACPA.  This award focuses specifically on the efforts made by a commission to engage in specific research and or scholarship that furthers the knowledge used by practitioners in service to students, to staff, or the academy.  Submissions might highlight white-papers, research projects, journal articles, and or books, just to name a few possibilities.

Excellence in Programming and Professional Development

This award recognizes the efforts of an entity to foster programs and developmental opportunities that enrich the professional experiences of ACPA members and/or invited student affairs and other academic participants.  Activities that might be highlighted include, but are not limited to:

• Hosting regional, web-based, national pre-conference, or national series programs in an area pertinent to participants’ professional lives.
• Engaging in initiatives that foster an understanding or highlight the importance of an issue or topic
• Serving as a thought leadership team regarding student affairs practice or process.

Excellence in Innovation

The award for Excellence in Innovation recognizes a singular effort that is innovative in terms of process, product, or service within student affairs.

Distinguished Commission Directorate Member

This award presents a commission with the opportunity to recognize an individual who consistently goes above and beyond to provide leadership within the group. An outstanding directorate member contributes something sustainable and lasting for the group, or rises to the level of being a leader among leaders, pulling a group together in a substantive way.