K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award
The K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award recognizes graduate students who show exemplary promise as future leaders of higher education and who are committed to academic innovation in the areas of equity, community engagement, and teaching and learning.
Nominations are due October 2, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Who Is Eligible?
Graduate students planning careers in higher education are eligible for nomination, regardless of academic discipline.
Eligible nominees are:
- Doctoral-seeking graduate students;
- Graduate students in disciplines where the master’s degree is the terminal degree, such as the MFA in art;
- Students who will maintain graduate student status through January 2027.
Nominations must be submitted by a faculty member or administrator.
What Recipients Receive
Recipients of the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award will be recognized at the 2027 AAC&U Annual Meeting.
Recipients also receive
- complimentary registration for the 2027 AAC&U Annual Meeting;
- a one-year AAC&U individual membership; and
- a one-year subscription to Liberal Education magazine.
Please note that travel and lodging expenses for the meeting are not covered by AAC&U.
What You'll Need to Submit
Each nomination must be made through the nomination form which includes the ability to submit:
- nomination letter from a faculty member or administrator;
- a supporting letter from a second faculty member or administrator;
- a statement from the student indicating how they meet the award criteria; and
- the student’s curriculum vitae.
NOTE: Supporting documents should be saved as PDFs with the name of the nominee—Last_First—and the type of document being submitted (Letter of Support), such as “Doe_Jane_Support.pdf”.
How Applications Are Reviewed
Nominations undergo a robust, multi-phase review process involving past Cross Award recipients and AAC&U staff.
Recipients are selected based on their demonstrated commitments to equity, innovation in teaching and learning, and community engagement as integrated components of their graduate work.
Questions?
For more information about the K. Patricia Cross Awards, please contact Alina Grant at agrant@aacu.org.
About K. Patricia Cross
The award honors the work of K. Patricia Cross, Professor Emerita of Higher Education at the University of California–Berkeley. Throughout her career, Dr. Cross helped the higher education community better understand our students, their characteristics, and their needs, and recognize what our responsibilities should be. Her groundbreaking scholarship paved the way for a legacy of work on age, socioeconomic class, gender, race, sexual orientation, and numerous other aspects of intersectional social identity.