Student Resources

Rationale for the Award

Graduate students are presently afforded multiple opportunities to be recognized for outstanding academics or scholarship. In contrast, there are few opportunities for them to be recognized for their leadership in service. The College of Education Graduate Student Leadership and Service Award is intended to recognize students who exhibit leadership through service as a means of improving the quality of graduate student life in the College of Education and making the graduate experience better for all. The intentional focus on service leadership acknowledges that student representation and contributions to university, college and program initiatives provide benefits for the student body as a whole. In addition, service through informal mentoring to peers creates a cohesive and collaborative climate in which graduate students can feel connected and supported.

Nomination Criteria

The recipient shall be a graduate student in good standing in one of the six programs in the College of Education who exhibits exemplary leadership and service. Such leadership and service may be within or across college programs (such as student representative to program meetings and informal mentoring of graduate students in the college) and can also be to the college as a whole (such as diversity initiatives), to the profession (such as serving as a university professional organizational representative), or to the university as a whole (such as service on the Graduate Student Council). Students demonstrating outstanding scholarship may also be nominated, but such students must demonstrate exemplary leadership or service in addition to their scholarship.

The award covers the calendar year prior to its being awarded (for example, calendar year 2020 was recognized by the 2021 award). Thus, any deserving student, including those recently graduated, who provided exemplary leadership and service in the previous calendar year is eligible to be nominated.

Nomination Process

Each of the programs in the college will be asked each year to nominate deserving students. In a typical year, each program will nominate at least one student. While programs are most likely to nominate students working in their own programs, they may also nominate students in other programs in the college. In addition, a call for nominations will be sent out to all COE faculty, students and staff, soliciting their nominations as well. Nominations of students from all graduate degree levels (master’s, educational specialist, and doctoral) will be considered.

Nominations may be submitted by graduate students, faculty and staff in the College of Education. Self-nominations, however, will not be considered and a student may not win the award two years in a row.

The nomination form will be posted online on the COE website as soon as possible. Nominators may download the form and complete it electronically. A nomination form will also be distributed via email to all faculty, staff, and students.

The due date for 2024 submissions is Friday, March 15th by 5pm. Nominations may be submitted electronically by attaching the completed form to an email to the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies; lbs211@lehigh.edu

A student nominated for the COE Graduate Student Leadership and Service Award is also eligible to be nominated for the university Graduate Student Life Leadership Award. The two awards are separate, although nominations for the College award are automatically nominated for the university award by the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies.

Selection Process

The selection committee consists of five members: two faculty members, two graduate students, and the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies. Student representatives may not be nominees, although they may be previous award recipients. The Associate Dean for Graduate Studies will appoint the members of the committee. By convention, when a previous award recipient who is not a current nominee is available, he/she will be asked to serve as one of the student representatives. If two such award recipients are available, they will be asked to serve as the student representatives.

The Associate Dean of Graduate Studies will solicit from the program directors the names of possible student representatives, disqualifying any student who is also a nominee.

In most years the selection committee will select a single award recipient, although co-recipients may be selected where warranted.

Award Process

The award recipient, or co-recipients, will receive $250 in professional development funds. In addition, the names of each year’s recipient (s) will be engraved on a publicly posted institutional plaque listing previous recipients.

The award may be given at a public event, if circumstances allow.

Scholarship, Humanity, and Social Change

We are pleased to announce the 2024 call for nominations for the Percy Hughes Award for Scholarship, Humanity, and Social Change.

Percy Hughes  was a philosopher, teacher, and professor who directed the Philosophy, Education, and Psychology Department at Lehigh University beginning in 1907 until 1942. Over the course of his 35-year tenure at Lehigh, Hughes used the responsibility of scholarship to pursue social change and transform the Lehigh culture. By committing himself to interdisciplinary work and humanistic principles, he furthered Lehigh’s tradition of scientific and classical education. From encouraging curriculum reform for engineers to campaigning against compulsory chapel attendance, Hughes worked tirelessly to transform Lehigh on an educational level. From women’s rights to environmentalism, Hughes devoted his life to historically progressive ideas. Hughes personified and advanced Lehigh’s motto – Homo minister et interpres naturae (man, servant and interpreter of nature) – throughout his career at Lehigh.

The Percy Hughes Award recognizes those who advance Lehigh University's culture of addressing the world's most pressing challenges with sleeves rolled up and an orientation towards real world issues. Award recipients are leaders who not only foster Lehigh's historic educational mission, values, and core beliefs but also push Lehigh in new directions and heights of excellence.  The recipient shall be a Lehigh University faculty member, staff member, or student (either graduate or undergraduate in good standing) who works towards implementing large, transformative ideas in the local, national, and world communities with grace, tenacity, and devotion.

The award covers the calendar year prior to its being awarded.  For example, the 2024 award will recognize accomplishments in January-December of 2023.

Nominations may be submitted by current students, faculty or staff across all of the departments in the five colleges.Self-nominations will not be considered.  Nominators should clearly describe how the nominee demonstrates the following four characteristics and behaviors:

Positive orientation: Committed to improving Lehigh and/or the broader communities (whether at the local, national, or global level).

Visible impact: Has a noticeable effect on Lehigh and/or the broader communities.
Innovative and/or transformative vision: Whether within Lehigh or in broader communities, contributes to enhancing current processes or helping to formulate new approaches and processes, or to helping others come to understand and support a transformative vision of how to move from where we are now to a state more in keeping with the spirit of Lehigh University.

Positive interpersonal characteristics: Demonstrates respect for all with whom he/she deals, demonstrates persistence when/if facing a setback, and honors both similarities and differences within and across communities.

Nominations must be submitted by May 1, 2024 at 5pm via email sent to Brook Sawyer, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, at roh206@lehigh.edu. All individuals will be notified of their nomination for the award. The selection committee shall select a single recipient, although co-recipients may be selected when the committee finds it impossible to identify a single, most-deserving recipient. The recipient will receive $5,000, in which half will be donated to a charity of their choice, and they will have their names engraved on the Percy Hughes Award plaque. The name of each year’s recipient(s) will be engraved on a publicly posted institutional plaque listing all previous recipients, and the accomplishments of the recipient(s) will be described and posted on the College of Education’s website.

The Past Award Recipient.

Dr. William Hunter, 2019/20: Dr. Hunter is an experiential educator who has worked in a variety of internationally focused capacities at Lehigh University for 21 years. He is the founder and Director of the Lehigh University / United Nations Partnership and is also the Director of the Office of Fellowship Advising. Some highlights of his efforts include establishing Lehigh as the 6th university in the world to attain United Nations Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) certification, creating the Ambassadorial Speaker Series  (hosting  the Iraqi, Afghani, Palestinian, Pakistani, Korean, Israeli, and Sudanese Ambassadors to the United Nations), the creation of more than 800 internationally focused educational, cultural and social programs for the Lehigh community, developer of Lehigh’s first International Community Service Trip (to Antigua & Barbuda) and service as a Guide and Project Mentor for several years in the Global Village for Future Leaders of Business and Industry. He is credited with developing the world’s first NGO Youth Representative program for the United Nations and recently completed a two-year term as an elected Director of the UN’s NGO Executive Committee. In recognition of his groundbreaking research on global competence, Dr. Hunter was nominated as a Chronicle of Higher Education “Rising Star in International Education.” He has also been honored as Pennsylvania’s “Outstanding International Educator.”

Each year our academic programs in the College have an opportunity to award a limited number of departmental scholarships in the form of tuition waivers. The general preference for awarding such program-administered departmental scholarships is first to full-time students pursuing a doctorate, then part-time students pursuing a doctorate, followed by full-time students pursuing a master’s degree, and lastly to part-time students pursuing a master’s.

The COE scholarship application for the summer 2025 term and the scholarship application for the 2025-2026 academic year will be open from November 15, 2024 through December 15, 2024.  

Summer tuition awards will be announced by the second week of April 2025 and tuition awards for the 2025-2026 academic year will be announced on or before June 13, 2025. The College will refer back to these submissions in the case additional awards become available.

Please note that scholarship credits are awarded by the College with program director recommendations. Changing your program after receipt of an award may result in forfeiture of those awarded scholarship credit(s).

• Scholarship Application for Summer 2025 
• Scholarship Application for Academic Year 2025-2026