UERU 2026 Leadership Summit Carl E. Wieman Award for Excellence Press Release

UERU Presents Inaugural Carl E. Wieman Award for Excellence, Honoring National Leaders in Undergraduate Education Reform

The Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UERU) today announced the inaugural recipients of the Carl E. Wieman Award for Excellence. The Department of Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Student Success, and Effectiveness at the University of Illinois Chicago were recognized for their leadership in advancing teaching excellence and equitable student success.

Presented during the UERU Leadership Summit, the awards broadly recognize research university departments and offices that demonstrate a sustained commitment to teaching excellence and high-quality undergraduate education. The award was established to advance the vision outlined in the Boyer 2030 Commission Report, The Equity-Excellence Imperative (2022). The UERU Leadership Summit was organized to hone and bolster implementation of the Boyer 2030 Commission Report recommendations despite changing circumstances.

The Wieman Award is named in honor of Carl E. Wieman, Cheriton Family Professor and Professor of Physics and of Education, Emeritus, at Stanford University. Dr. Wieman is a Nobel Laureate, Carnegie Professor of the Year, and an internationally recognized scholar of science education. Dr. Wieman was on hand to help present the inaugural awards. 

The Wieman Award reflects UERU's commitment to strengthening undergraduate education through evidence-based teaching practices, institutional accountability, and student-centered innovation. Over four decades, Dr. Wieman has advanced research on teaching and learning, helped transform STEM education nationally and internationally, and exemplified the integration of excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service.

The inaugural recipients represent two complementary approaches to educational excellence: improving teaching quality and transforming student pathways to success.

The Department of Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, has helped reconceive teaching evaluation. Building on the department's internationally recognized contributions to physics education research, faculty leaders advanced reforms that improved teaching evaluation practices across multiple colleges at the university. The department's work has been strengthened through participation in national initiatives including the AAU STEM Education Initiative, the Departmental Action Team initiative, the former Bay View Alliance, UERU's Raising the Bar Initiative, and the Transforming Higher Education–Multidimensional Evaluation of Teaching (TEval) project, which culminated in the 2026 Harvard Education Press book, Transforming College Teaching Evaluation: A Framework for Advancing Instructional Excellence.

Led by Department of Physics Vice Chair Noah Finkelstein, the department helped demonstrate how institutions can evaluate and support instructional excellence using multiple measures. 

The Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Student Success, and Effectiveness at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) led by Nikos Varelas, is recognized for its leadership of Chicago Roadmap 2.0, an ambitious regional partnership among Chicago Public Schools, the City Colleges of Chicago, and UIC. Designed to remove barriers to equitable transfer student success, establish seamless transfer pathways across institutions, eliminate credit loss, and improve bachelor's degree attainment, this collaborative initiative has emerged as a national model for student success and educational equity. The effort is supported by significant philanthropic investments, bolstered by participation from the University of Illinois System, and informed by Curricular Analytics, while also benefiting from engagement with national networks, among them Excelencia in Education, University Innovation Alliance, Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, Student Experience Project, and UERU, where Dr. Varelas who is Senior Vice Provost for Academic Programs, Student Success, and Effectiveness at UIC, recently served as Board President. 

This award emphasizes accountability, an often-overlooked component of educational excellence," said Carl E. Wieman, the award's namesake. "Virtually every institution claims to provide an outstanding undergraduate education, but there are few ways for students to distinguish between aspiration and demonstrated achievement. By recognizing departments that have built systems to support and assess excellence in teaching and learning, this award shines a light on models worthy of attention and emulation.

The University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Illinois Chicago demonstrate that excellence in undergraduate education is not the product of isolated innovators, but of intentional systems, leadership, and accountability," said Steven P. Dandaneau, UERU Executive Director and Associate Provost at Colorado State University. “We are proud to recognize them both as the first recipients of the Carl E. Wieman Award for Excellence.

According to UERU, the Carl E. Wieman Award is intended not only to celebrate exceptional achievements, but also to elevate models that other research universities can adapt and scale. By uncovering the structures, incentives, and cultures that foster student learning, the award advances a central premise of the Boyer 2030 Commission’s agenda: the need to support as well as continuously measure and assess equity-excellence in undergraduate education. 

Founded in 2000 by Stony Brook University President Shirley Strum Kenny following publication of the landmark 1998 Boyer Commission Report, UERU today serves more than 140 R1/R2 research universities and 8 international affiliates committed to transforming undergraduate education at research universities. Through conferences, publications, leadership development, and communities of practice, UERU advances equitable student success and educational excellence across the research university sector.