Download the nomination form

Purpose

To recognize individuals who have made outstanding meritorious contributions of state or national significance to the improvement, promotion, development and progress of career and technical education. This award was established in 1985 in honor of the late Rep. Carl Perkins and is designed to recognize individuals who have demonstrated the same humanitarian concerns exemplified by Rep. Perkins.

Criteria

The award will be presented to individuals whose careers have been marked by actions that have enabled career and technical education programs to respond more fully to the individual needs of people for assistance in achieving more productive lives. This award, ACTE’s highest award, will be given only to individuals whose contributions have been of state or national significance. Only under unusual circumstances will more than one award be presented in any one year.

Eligibility

This award may be presented to persons either in or outside the field of career and technical education. The individual may be a member of Congress, educator, farm leader, business person, labor leader, leader for the improvement of home and family living or any other person who has rendered outstanding service to career and technical education. This includes career and technical educators who, through exemplary service, have improved career and technical education.

Evaluation Criteria

The nominees will be evaluated on the following criteria:

1. Actions that have enabled career and technical education programs to respond more fully to the individual needs of people for assistance in achieving more productive lives. Evaluation based on 50 possible points.
2. Meritorious contributions of state or national significance to the improvement, promotion, development and progress of career and technical education. Evaluation based on 50 possible points.

Application Procedures

All nominations must come from ACTE members, but the nominee is not required to be an ACTE member. Each nominee must be endorsed or sponsored by an association, agency, group, several individuals or a combination of these.

A nomination dossier must be developed for each nominee as follows:

1. Form A (Found in the booklet or on the forms page)
2. Outstanding Accomplishments of the Nominee (Page 2): List the contributions and achievements of the nominee that have advanced career and technical education. List pertinent information that will clearly indicate the nominee's contributions beyond his or her job assignment. List in order of significance. Information should be brief, to the point and limited to one page. 
3. Support information (pages 3-4). This should be no more than one page each in two sections as follows:
   • Section A - Actions that have enabled career and technical education programs to respond more fully to the individual needs of people for assistance in achieving more productive lives.
   • Section B – Meritorious contributions of state or national significance to the improvement, promotion, development and progress of career and technical education.
4. Letters of support, limited to a maximum of ten pages (pages 5-14).  Letters should be one page in length. Suggested endorsers might include: political leaders, professional association leaders, business and industrial leaders, educational leaders, civic leaders, parents and students.
5. One photograph of the nominee. The photograph is used for publicity purposes only.

Applicants should submit information written in the 3rd person context rather than the 1st. Events should be dated and listed with the most recent submitted first. All materials must be word processed or typewritten on 8-1/2 X 11 sheets with 3/4" margins, left, right, top and bottom. Applicants are strongly encouraged to send the dossier electronically. All materials must be submitted at the same time as a complete package. No supplementary materials may be submitted; items not outlined above will be discarded before judging. All procedures must be followed for an application to be considered. Applications that do not follow these procedures will be rejected and returned.

Nominations can be submitted to:

Executive Director, Association for Career and Technical Education, 1410 King Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314.

Deadline

All nominations must be received at ACTE headquarters by May5, 2008.