The Distinguished Research Award, made possible by a generous gift from Lettie Judkins McNeill, is given to any full time, regularly appointed (tenured or tenure-track) faculty person who completes within the past three years a research project, publication, or work of art deemed to be of high professional quality by standards of peers within the appropriate discipline.  Nominations should include appropriate supporting material (i.e. published reviews, information on publisher, newspaper articles, etc.) and reference a specific work.  No person receiving the award can receive it a second time within a five-year period. 

A designated committee consisting of past years' recipients reviews the nominations.  The criteria used by the committee to determine the winner is whether or not the research

• contributed to the discipline of the recipient;
• received a favorable review by peers within and outside Simpson College;
• acknowledged major impact on the scholarship/knowledge/holdings of the discipline;
• brought acclaim to the professor and to the college.

Applications for this award are to be made no later than April 1 of each academic year to the office of the academic dean.