Purpose: To honor a person with 10 years or less of work experience, who has demonstrated exemplary leadership traits at an early career point to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in education and/or the workforce.

Number Given:  1

Eligibility:  Any person from government, industry, nonprofit, or education/academia who is in the beginning career stages.  They must be a NAPE member or from an organization that has served as a collaborative partner with NAPE.

Ideal Candidate: The ideal candidate has distinguished themselves from peers by promoting access, equity, and diversity in the workplace or community and has demonstrated through actions that they embrace the NAPE belief that access to diverse human brain power will help to solve global challenges.

Selection Criteria: Candidates will be considered based on their embodiment of the NAPE values within their profession and/or community:

Educational Equity:

• Has undertaken significant tasks that promote equity, access, and diversity at local, state or national levels demonstrating alignment with the values and mission of NAPE;
• Has a record of inclusion and diversity in advisement, planning, and organization of programs;
• Participates in the larger equity community;
• Develops future leaders in their profession and/or community; and
• Demonstrates leadership skills with the ability to operate effectively in a team, advocates for others and contributes positively to organization operations and working relationships.

Innovation:

• Brings value to NAPE by offering new ideas, programs, or mechanisms to foster NAPE’s mission and values;
• Takes appropriate risks and challenges the status quo; and
• Has made a contribution to the workplace by showing innovation in planning and implementing a successful project.

Outcome Driven:

• Demonstrates ability to create and implement programs and procedures to improve educational equity; and
• Utilizes data, where appropriate, to validate and promote efforts.