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Mary Elizabeth Gutermuth Award for Community Engagement

The Graduate School annually accepts nominations for the Gutermuth Award beginning December 1.

Winners of the Gutermuth Award will be recognized at the Graduate and Postdoctoral Awards Banquet held in April. The award consists of a $4000 summer fellowship and a keepsake recognizing the honor. Send nominations via email to mugradfellowshipnom@missouri.edu and include Gutermuth Award in the subject line.

Mary Elizabeth Gutermuth, completed her Master of Arts and Ph.D. at MU with an emphasis in French and Spanish Literature. Her endowment to the University, funded through her estate gift, is directed to support a graduate student who has a history of and interest in community service through engaged scholarship. Community engagement, or engaged scholarship, represents a collaboration between higher education scholars and their community for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and/or resources in a framework that is cooperative and reciprocal. Scholars collaborate with practitioners in the public and/or private sectors to enrich their own scholarly and creative activities while addressing a critical societal issue or contributing to a community need or public good.

Community-engaged scholarship is directly related to your discipline and always associated with community partnerships in your academic field.

Community represents groups of people who share commonalities, including geography (local, global); identity; affiliation or interest; circumstance; profession or practice; faith; and/or family/kin.

Scholarly means the work is based on existing scholarship and best practices and will generate new understandings and scholarly products for academic and public audiences. All scholarship, including community-engaged scholarship, requires high level of disciplinary (or interdisciplinary) expertise and uses an appropriate methodology.

Engaged means the work can be described as systemic, collaborative, asset based, mutually beneficial, capacity building and for the public good.

Nomination Requirements

Students must self-nominate for this award.

Eligibility

Any MU graduate student in good standing who will still be enrolled in a degree program during the summer following the receipt of the award.

Applicants will be evaluated on:

  • clarity and quality of application materials
  • commitment to community engagement
  • connection between scholarship/creative work and its impact on society
  • relationship between community engagement and professional goals

Awardees will be selected by a committee that includes students, faculty, staff, and community members.

Timeline

Call Out: December 1
Nominations Due: the second Monday in March

Minimum Requirements for Nominations

Nomination packets must be submitted as a single PDF document to: mugradfellowshipnom@missouri.edu

The following required documents must be included in the PDF document in the order listed below. Save the file with the applicant’s last name. Unlike many of the other graduate school awards, students must self-nominate for the Guttermuth Award.

Required Documents:

  1. Completed application: Gutermuth-award-coversheet
  2. Resume or curriculum vitae
  3. Description of the scholarly and/or creative activity in lay terms. Include information (or evidence) that clearly documents the reciprocal and cooperative relationship with the community served and how this activity fosters your research/scholarship (250 words or less). This description should include many of the following items:
    • Societal or community issues addressed; the purpose(s) of the project you completed, methods, and actions taken; the duration and length of the project; community and scholarly partners and their roles; sources of funding, if any; evaluation methods; creation of intellectual property, if any; and the outcomes of the project you completed.
  4. A personal reflective statement on the impact of your scholarly and/or creative activity to the community or society and its influence, if any, on you personally, and on your future professional goals (250 words or less).
  5. Nomination letter from your faculty advisor or academic mentor for this project. The letter should address your role in the project, efforts to date, and potential impact.
  6. Nomination letter from a community partner that addresses your role in the project, the value and impact of the project to the community, and any future potential for the collaboration.

NO ADDITIONAL MATERIALS MAY BE SUBMITTED!