The Office of Faculty Affairs and the Graduate School are happy to announce the call for nominations for the Joseph Sullivant Medal, one of the highest honors that The Ohio State University grants to any of its former students or faculty.
In 1920, Thomas C. Mendenhall, the first member of the original university faculty, endowed a fund to award a medal for “a really notable piece of work in either the Liberal, the Fine, or the Mechanic Arts, the Pure or Applied Sciences, including the various branches of engineering.” The Sullivant Medal was named for Joseph Sullivant, a member of the university’s first Board of Trustees. This medal, awarded every five years, will be presented in 2026 during an appropriate university commencement ceremony. The recipient will also receive a monetary award of $5,000.
The principal nominator must submit the final nomination materials and letters of support via the Qualtrics nomination form. The final nomination materials must include:
- a detailed letter of nomination with a max of 1,500 words;
- three letters of support with a max of 1,500 words per letter; and
- a current curriculum vitae of the nominee.
Please note that each component of the final nomination materials will be uploaded individually, and final nominations do not need to be combined into one final document. Individual components should not exceed 20MB in size.
To be eligible, a nominee must have continued to make significant contributions to their field throughout their career, have produced “a really notable piece of work in either the Liberal, the Fine, or the Mechanic Arts, the Pure or Applied Sciences, including the various branches of engineering” in the last five years and meet one of the following criteria as specified in order of preference by Mendenhall:
- a successful OSU undergraduate
- Non-graduate who has studied at Ohio State for at least two years
- Member of the Ohio State faculty who is not a graduate of the university, but has served as Ohio State faculty for at least 10 years and produced the notable piece of work which entitles them for nomination during their connection with Ohio State.
Nominees will be evaluated on a five-point (five being excellent and zero being not evident) scale on the following criteria:
- Eligibility or status with the university
- Timeliness of significant work
- Significance and originality
- Breadth of impact
- Enduring contribution
- Recognition and honors
- Alignment with fields
- Leadership or stewardship
- Narrative quality of nomination
The nomination deadline is October 3, 2025. The nomination committee will be composed of representatives from the Graduate Council who represent the health sciences, the professional colleges, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Faculty Senate, and a representative from the Office of Faculty Affairs. Once final recommendations have been reached by the nomination committee, they will be passed to the university president. The president will then appoint a "Board of Award" consisting of three persons having no connection with the university, who, by reason of their standing and attainments, professional or otherwise, are, in the president’s opinion, competent to make a final recommendation to the president. The president will make final decisions to the Board of Trustees in December 2025, and they will vote on the final conferral of the medal during the board’s February 2026 meeting.
Previous medal recipients constitute a distinguished cohort of faculty, students and alumni from all disciplines. A list of recipients has been published on the Board of Trustees website. Nominees for the 2025 award are expected to be worthy of membership in that company. Only the strongest nominations should be submitted.
If you have questions about the Sullivant Medal or any issues with the nomination form, please feel free to reach out to Kaprea Johnson at johnson.9545@osu.edu and TJ Carpenter at carpenter.1112@osu.edu , and they would be happy to assist you.