Outstanding Faculty Service Award for Professor Laura T. Scales

The Outstanding Faculty Service Leadership Award is given to a full-time faculty member whose service and leadership have significantly advanced the mission of Stonehill College.  The Faculty Academic Vision statement affirms that “a Stonehill education prepares students for meaningful lives by encouraging service to the common good, the practice of responsible citizenship, and the pursuit of professional and personal fulfillment.” As we expect this for our students, we expect the same from our faculty.  Therefore, public service and service to the academic community are highly valued by the faculty at Stonehill College.  This award recognizes a cumulative record of noteworthy accomplishment in service and leadership on the part of a faculty member.  The recipient stands as a symbol of the entire faculty’s commitment to sustaining our community.  In 2021, Stonehill College is proud to bestow the Outstanding Faculty Service Leadership Award on Professor Laura Scales. 

Your commitment to Stonehill’s mission is abundantly clear to all who work with you. While compiling an excellent teaching portfolio and a record of scholarly achievement, you have also—in one capacity or another—shown your willingness to better our Stonehill community as demonstrated in these words of faculty who nominated you for this recognition. 

You truly exemplify what it means to be a leader and role model, for both fellow faculty as well as students and staff, in your tireless efforts to serve Stonehill College’s mission of creating a more just and compassionate world. You stepped into the role of President of the Faculty Senate and have served with professionalism, dedication, and fairness—even as the role expanded dramatically, with significantly more meetings, summer work, and attendant stress. Indeed, especially during the height of the pandemic and the Provost search (on which you served), it seemed like a full-time administration position, held simultaneously with your regular teaching responsibilities. Your clear communication with faculty and your organizational talents have helped increase transparency, something much appreciated by your colleagues during this uncertain, anxious time. 

Outside of the direct administration of the Faculty Senate, you also chair the Governance Committee, the so-called "workshop" of the Senate, where proposals in which the Senate is interested are developed. You kept multiple proposals in development at a time, including enormous undertakings such as the Faculty Disciplinary Policy, the Intellectual Property Policy, revisions to the Rank and Tenure Policy, and the Faculty Hiring Guide, just to name a few. Even with all the exhaustion and frustration that this year has brought to the entire college community, you remain dedicated to making Stonehill the best place it can be for the students, the staff, and the faculty. 

Since 2017, you have rallied a team of faculty across various disciplines to support your Bold Ideas Competition proposal, which has become the foundation for the newly established Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Social Justice, and you continue to build the strategic plan and programming for this entity. With this, you have demonstrated remarkable leadership, stamina, and conviction that the Center would help Stonehill achieve greater heights in scholarship and community building. 

In the face of a global pandemic and dramatic shifts in higher education, you have been an indefatigable advocate for faculty shared governance. You have worked countless hours to make Stonehill a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable place for both faculty, staff, and students. 

And so, with deep pride we confer the 2021 Outstanding Faculty Service Leadership Award to you, Professor Laura Scales, for your tireless service, consistent example, and exemplary contributions to Stonehill College. 

Given this 26th day of May, 

Two Thousand and Twenty-One