Nominations will only be accepted from collegiate deans. Complete nominations should be submitted to faculty@uiowa.edu as a single pdf file.

Nominations of women, underrepresented minorities, and other groups historically underrepresented in their discipline are encouraged.

Completed nominations must include: 

From the nominee (submitted to the collegiate dean):

• Current CV
• A statement of no more than two pages describing the nominee’s contributions to the field and how their research, teaching, and/or scholarship has contributed to the institution, the State and the discipline. 
• Three examples of scholarly products. 
• Names and contact information of three to five faculty, both internal and external, who can provide letters of support. 

From the collegiate dean: 

• A nomination letter from the collegiate dean highlighting the nominee’s qualifications and describing the candidate’s scholarship, teaching, and/or service excellence and evidence of the potential for continued extraordinary productivity. 
• Three letters of support from faculty who are familiar with the candidate’s contributions are to be solicited by the dean. One letter must be external to the university. The letter should include the following: 
  • A brief explanation of the professional relationship to the nominee. 
  • Evidence of the quality of the candidate’s work and impact on the field. 
  • Evidence of the candidate’s substantial recognition nationally and internationally among their peers. 
• The materials supplied by the candidate.

Nominations will be reviewed by the University Chair committee, which is composed of three tenured full professors, the president of Faculty Senate or their designee, and the associate provost for faculty. The selection committee will recommend awardees to the executive vice president and provost for final approval. 

Professors Amy Colbert and Kenneth Tse have been named recipients of the University of Iowa Distinguished Chair in spring 2024.

Amy Colbert, Tippie College of Business

Colbert is an internationally renowned researcher who focuses on the ways individuals connect with their work and others in their workplace to motivate and sustain them, as well as the factors that contribute to effective leadership and the mechanisms by which leaders achieve results. She has successfully brought her research into the classroom by developing one of the most popular elective courses in the Iowa MBA program, Leadership and Personal Development. She also teaches executive education on topics of leadership and motivation for companies throughout Iowa and in several of the business programs offered through Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine, College of Dentistry, and College of Pharmacy. 

Colbert has published articles in top scholarly journals, such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Administrative Science Quarterly. She is also recognized at the top of her field as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Association of Psychological Science, and the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology. 

Colbert has held the Leonard A. Hadley Chair in Leadership at Tippie since 2017, served as department executive officer of management and entrepreneurship, and is currently the faculty director of Tippie’s Social Impact Community, a hub for faculty, staff, and students interested in ways that business can make a positive impact on society.

Kenneth Tse, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Tse is recognized as one of the world’s leading classical saxophonists, becoming well-known internationally after winning the New York International Artists Competitions and the Alex Award from the National Alliance for Excellence in 1996. Those awards led to his debut performances at Carnegie Hall, and he has since performed as a soloist on five continents and recorded 23 CDs with over forty works dedicated to him by noted American and international composers.

Tse has performed with renowned orchestras and concert bands in places such as Strasbourg, Hong Kong, Thailand, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, and with the US Navy Band. He has also shared expertise at prestigious institutions including the Paris Conservatory; the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory; the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, Poland; and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia. Moreover, he has been invited to judge at the most prestigious international saxophone competitions, representing the USA in Belgium and Andorra.

Tse has been at Iowa for more than two decades and helped create a strong musical community across the state. Under his direction, the Iowa Saxophonists’ Workshop has brought widespread recognition to Iowa’s School of Music, with its students succeeding at international competitions, earning positions at top institutions across the country, and producing CDs and videos showing their work.  Along with creating the Iowa Saxophone Unite Event, Tse has achieved the remarkable distinction of being the first saxophonist to hold concurrent, elected presidencies in both the North American Saxophone Alliance and the International Saxophone Committee.