The five Premier Awards, the highest awards given by the University, honor a total of six students and two non-students, including faculty members. UA president Robert Witt will present this year’s awards to the winners at a dinner event in the spring.
The period for nominations runs through today, and applications and letters of recommendation for the Awards are due Dec. 3.
Kristin Sutton, undergraduate assistant for the Premier Awards, works to raise student awareness about the opportunity to apply.
“We want students to know how prestigious these awards are,” she said. “Oftentimes there are really qualified students on this campus that just don’t apply.”
She said this year they have begun using a nomination process to be able to recognize those who qualify for the awards.
“Those persons that represent selfless service, scholarship and such leadership are often very modest and most humble and don’t typically apply,” she said. “So we incorporated the nomination process so that if a student of faculty member wanted to nominate someone they thought would be deserving they could.”
Juniors are eligible to apply for the William P. Bloom Award, which recognizes a student who has improved relations among different groups. The John Fraser Ramsey Award, also available for juniors, honors a student with broad humanistic interests and has exerted a positive influence on his or her contemporaries.
The Catherine J. Randall Award, Morris Lehman Mayer Award and Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award are open to seniors.
“With the Randall award, we have a blue ribbon committee that are comprised of people that are specialized in the area of research that aid the committee in judging the quality of the research material to choose the right person for the award,” Sutton said.
Both the Morris Lehman Mayer Award and Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award have non-student winners.
“Being selected as the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award winner was a tremendous honor that motivates me to always be conscious of those in the world around me,” Kendra Key, one of last year’s Premier Award recipients, said in a press release.
Sutton said all students who meet the requirements are urged to apply for the awards and students should not be intimated by the prestigious of the award.
“The recipients of the past that have won these awards said that it was something they never expected, they just applied,” she said. “The students may not have thought they had what the committee was looking for, but turns out it actually was.”
The selection committee is comprised of people from all around campus and those who have been associated with the awards in the past. The committee’s diversity is an asset when they choose the recipients of the awards, Sutton said.
