Cruz Award Nominations & Selection Criteria

How to apply

Nominate a community engagement professional (new for 2024!)

Do you know a community engagement professional who deserves recognition for their transformative collaboration with communities, commitment to justice-oriented work, and impact on the larger community engagement movement? Nominate a candidate for this award. The nomination form will allow you to submit a community engagement professional for consideration and offer a testimonial describing why they are deserving of the award. Nominees will be notified of their selection and encouraged to complete the full application to be considered for the award.

Submit a nomination for the Cruz Award →
Nominations are due October 14, 2024

Apply for the award

We strongly encourage individuals to apply for the award directly! Whether or not you are nominated, all community engagement professionals who wish to be considered for the award must complete the full application to be eligible for consideration.

Start an application for the Cruz Award →
Applications are due October 31, 2024

Eligibility

Applicant must:

• Be affiliated with a Campus Compact member institution
• Have been working in the field of higher education community engagement for a minimum of five years
• Demonstrate a substantive body of work developed over a significant period of time. The award is not focused on recognizing individual projects

Selection Criteria

I. Evidence of justice-oriented civic and community engagement work

• Demonstrated integration & institutionalization of effective practices that promote the pinciples of equity, full participation, and community as co-educator
• Evidenced by any of a variety of artifacts, including works of scholarship, documentation of community collaborations, documentation of projects engaging and partnering with faculty, and documentation of programs that engage students

II. Evidence of community collaboration and change

• Demonstrated commitment to the development of sustainable, effective, ethical partnerships promoting transformative change that advances greater and more equitable participation in the political, economic, social, or cultural dimensions of community and public life
• Evidenced by any of the following:
  • Ongoing work with community members to design, implement, and improve engagement initiatives
  • Recognition of partners as co-educators
  • Evaluation results of projects or programs that show benefits for both communities and students
  • Support for multifaceted partnerships focused on public issues
  • Participation in or facilitation of research-based collaborations
  • Participation in scholarship that engages partners in answering community-driven questions

III. Evidence of impact on the larger movement for ethical and effective higher education community engagement

• Demonstrated leadership in developing a campus culture of ethical and effective community engagement through programs, practices, or policies that have had cumulative impact improving the field of community engagement (locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally)
• Evidenced by the nominee’s contributions to the adoption of ethical and effective practices on or beyond an individual campus