Morrill Awards

Morrill Awards - call for nominations

In 2012, Purdue's Office of the Provost created a faculty award in honor of the 150th celebration of the Morrill Act. ¹  The Morrill Award is the highest honor that Purdue confers onto a member of its faculty.  It is intended for faculty at the rank of full professor who most strongly exemplifies the spirit of the land grant university.  Recipients will exemplify the all-around teacher/scholar model: their research has been recognized by their peers; their teaching stands as best in their fields;  and their engagement has been  recognized for its unique benefits to the community and/or faculty members' disciplines.   In short, with the Morrill Award, Purdue recognizes the faculty who best exhibit excellence in, and synergies among, all three dimensions of their profession-teaching, research and engagement.

Each year, the Office of the Provost selects up to three Morrill Award recipients who receive a $30,000 cash prize.  

Nominations must include:

• A summary (not to exceed three pages) of the nominee’s accomplishments in each of the three areas of teaching, research and engagement; please highlight work that merits consideration for the prestigious Morrill Award.
• The nominee’s complete academic CV.
• A letter from the department/school head and/or dean endorsing the nomination.
• Three letters of support, including at least two from external faculty who can assess the impact and significance of the nominee’s contributions to the field.

The call out for the Morrill Award will be in the Fall semester, and the nominations will be due February 28, 2025. Winners will be announced in May and are expected to attend the annual Faculty Honors & Recognition event on May 5, 2025.

Please direct questions to the Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Office.

Nomination information and supporting materials should be emailed to facultyaffairs@purdue.edu by February 28, 2025.

To view a list of past Morrill award winners, click here.

¹The Morrill Act of 1862 came to be known as the Land Grant College Act. Introduced by Vermont congressman Justin Smith Morrill, the Morrill Act called for government support of higher education to ensure access for all social classes. The Act created land-grant universities where the middle class could gain the knowledge and skills to feed the world, manufacture needed goods, improve public health, protect national security and enhance the quality of life. In essence, Morrill wanted to ensure that higher education provided a large sector of the population with a practical, liberal education that had relevance to their daily lives.

The Morrill Act forever changed the face of higher education in the U.S. and set up the expectation that universities had a responsibility to serve the state that supported them as well as contribute to the well-being of the country.