Resources for promoting the Awards of Excellence
Use the materials below to promote nominations for the 57th annual Awards of Excellence. This media kit includes official copy, a PowerPoint presentation, a flyer and downloadable imagery.
Nominations open on Oct. 5, 2026. Deadlines vary by award, with most in November and December. Recipients will be celebrated at the June 2027 Awards of Excellence ceremony.
Copy for your channels
Use or adapt the text below when you mention the Awards of Excellence in a newsletter, website, digital sign or social post. Keep the opening sentence when you can. Link to the general awards nominations page or to a specific award of your choosing.
Headline
Nominations open for the Awards of Excellence
Description
For more than 50 years, the Awards of Excellence have celebrated outstanding faculty, staff, students and alumni whose achievements exemplify the University’s mission. Many of those contributions happen quietly — in classrooms, labs, clinics, offices and neighborhoods — and this program is how the University brings that work into the light. Each award recipient will be honored at the annual Awards of Excellence Ceremony in June 2027.
View the complete list of awards and make a nomination.
PowerPoint for your meetings
The following is a single slide you can drop into an existing all-hands or town hall deck.
Printable flyer
Use this flyer to help spread the word and encourage nominations across your network.
Images for your channels
Click on the images below to save it in full resolution:
Digital Accessibility Compliance Guidelines
To ensure alignment with the University of Washington’s commitment to digital equity and the UW Minimum Digital Accessibility Technical Standard, all assets in this media kit must be used in a manner that remains accessible to individuals with disabilities.
When deploying these assets on UW websites, email newsletters or social media channels, please adhere to the following rules:
1. Do not embed text onto images
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- Rule: Graphics provided in this kit are designed to be purely visual or contain only the official UW logo. Do not modify these assets to “bake” or flatten text directly onto the graphic.
- Why it matters: Baking text into an image forces a decorative asset to act as a functional element—complicating the screen reader’s experience even when alt text is used.
- Correct practice: Upload the clean graphic and use your platform’s native editing tools to apply a live-text overlay, or simply type the information as standard HTML body text directly adjacent to the image.
- View some examples of incorrect usage
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2. Provide descriptive alternative (alt) text
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- Rule: Every image from this kit used on a public-facing digital platform must include alternative text (alt text).
- How to write it: Describe the actual content and context of the image concisely. Do not use phrases like “Image of…” or “Graphic of…”
- Learn more about the UW’s guidance on alt-text
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3. Maintain high color contrast
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- Rule: If you use a live-text overlay on top of any media kit image, ensure a high visual contrast between the text and the background.
- Requirement: Text must maintain a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 against the underlying graphic to remain readable for users with low vision. Avoid putting text over busy or multi-colored sections of an image.
- Use the UW’s color contrast checker
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Find approved UW logos, colors, fonts, graphics, visual assets and more in the UW Brand Portal.