Citations of Excellence

Citations of Excellence

Nominate someone for an individual award here!

Nominate a team for an award here!

UC Davis Staff Assembly’s annual Citations of Excellence awards program provides recognition for UC Davis individual staff and teams, who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in one of the following areas:

• Health & Well-being
• Nominations should be based on achievements such as demonstrating consistent commitment to their employees’/colleagues’ work/life and well-being, demonstrating their knowledge of health and well-being resources on campus, integrating their knowledge of and approaches to well-being into their work, leadership, and/or activities on campus, supporting access to and engagement in workplace health and well-being programs, services, and events, connecting with others and helping educate their co-workers about health and well-being program offerings, as well as supporting a healthy, inclusive, and engaging culture of well-being in unit/department.
• Innovation
• Nominations should be based on achievements in innovation that result in time/dollar savings, revenue enhancement, productivity improvement, and/or creative activities that benefit the organization’s system, protocols and/or procedures.
• Mentorship
• Nominations should be based on outstanding leadership in coaching and mentoring other staff members.
• Research
• Nominations should be based on achievements such as providing a high level of support to active research programs, exemplary support of grant administration, as well as activities which contribute to the well-being and interests of students, faculty, staff, and the campus.
• Service
• Nominations should be based on achievements such as fostering engagement and inclusion in the campus community, leadership, and volunteerism.
• Supervision
• Nominations should be based on achievements such as creating and maintaining high morale, acknowledging and recognizing each employee’s efforts, encouraging employee career growth and modeling and promoting healthy work/life habits. (Supervision or lead nominations, MUST include two nominators who work under the supervision or lead of the nominee.)
• Teaching
• Nominations should be based on achievements such as providing a high level of service to students, fostering student engagement, providing notable contributions to one’s department, or creative and original engagement in support of the University’s teaching mission.
• Team Award
• Nominations for team awards should be based on achievements that contribute to the University Mission of Teaching, Research and Service, provides exemplary services to students, staff, faculty and/or general campus, makes notable contributions to the department and/or campus and embodies the Principles of Community. Teams include project or program staff, office staff, or other similar groups, but entire departments or service units may not be nominated. A team nomination size is a maximum of 6 people.

Requirements for Nomination

• Nominees for awards must be UC Davis career staff members (past probationary period of employment status), in good standing (not in process of corrective action), and meet the outlined criteria for each award.
• Nominations should be submitted by three campus employees with knowledge of a staff member’s outstanding achievement. Two of the nominators for the Supervision Award must be from employees who work under the supervision or lead of the nominee.
• Staff members selected for awards must be active employees at the time the award is given as the monetary award is distributed via payroll. If an award winner resigns or retires, they will not receive funds for the award.
• If the nominee received an award or honorable mention last year, they are not eligible to receive an award or honorable mention for the same project/service this year.
• Nominating and soliciting signatures for oneself is not allowed.   
• Nomination submissions will be shared with the nominees after the award recipients are chosen unless nominator elects not to.
• The award committee reserves the right to not issue awards in any category. 

NOTE: Certain bargaining units do not allow for financial awards and/or scholarships. Staff who are a part of these units will not be eligible to receive Citations of Excellence. For those represented by a union, at this time only K3, SV, and RP are eligible to accept awards.

Nomination Information

• Nominations should be CONCISE and address the IMPACT of the nominee's contributions.
• Provide specific, meaningful description of the nominee's contributions.
• Use specific examples of accomplishments.
• Avoid generalities and make every sentence count.   
• Address all aspects of the award criteria. 

Please contact Staff Assembly at [email protected] if you have any questions.

Individual Awards

Nominations for individual awards will be evaluated using common criteria in addition to specific criteria for each of the respective awards.  

The common criteria includes:

• Provides exemplary services to students, staff, faculty and/or general campus
• Makes notable contributions to the department and/or campus
• Creates and maintains high morale
• Embodies the Principles of Community

The Citations of Excellence Awards recognize staff with achievements that go above and beyond the minimum requirements outlined in their position descriptions.

Additional criteria are listed with the description of each of the awards.  

The nomination narrative for Individual Awards is limited to 3200 characters (approximately 500 words). 

Nominate someone for an individual award here!

Team Awards

For the Team Award, it is important to consider true excellence when nominating teams for this prestigious award. Staff Assembly wants to recognize teams of staff who go beyond the expectations of their position descriptions in contributing to the University’s Mission of Teaching, Research, and Service; and who exemplify outstanding achievement and/or service.

Familiarize yourself with the basic expectations of the team members in order to better highlight how they go above and beyond the minimum requirements of their positions. 

When submitting your nomination, please provide examples showcasing how the team: 

• Contributes to the University's Mission of Teaching, Research, and Service
• Provides exemplary service to students, staff and/or the broader campus
• Makes notable contributions to the department and/or campus
• Creates and maintains high morale
• Embodies the Principles of Community

The narrative for the Team Award is limited to 4000 characters (approximately 750 words).  

A team nomination size is a maximum of 6 people.

Nominate a team for an award here!