MINUTES

1. The minutes from January 11, 2008 were approved.

2. Updates

a. The new CITA will be re-doing the system and maintaining it from now on. Be thinking of enhancements you would like to have for the system. Mark expressed interest in serving as the liaison with IT to look at the new design.

b. The Alison Award invitations & new checklist have been distributed to faculty across campus.

c. Linda and Michael met with John Brennan to discuss ways to advertise the Excellence Awards. John has written several press releases and has designed a poster that Michael will see is posted in all the residence halls. The committee discussed the need for a system to reach alumni. Kirsten explained the easy alumni email system that exists at her alma mater. Mark mentioned that a number of schools are going to branded cell phones. Students use the phones as undergrads and then keep that number as alumni. This allows the school to text message alums. The committee also discussed having a Facebook group for recent alums.

d. Linda told the committee that with Publications she has created a new online application form for applicants wanting to include new awards in the Honors Day booklet.

3. Excellence awards

a. Rhonda and Jon ordered a banner ad in FaceBook. To date there are 205 teaching nominations, more than two times the number at this time last year, and 44 advising nominations vs. 13 at this time last year. Jon and Zach are working on a list of student leaders to contact so they can urge their students members to nominate faculty for these award. John Brennan will run an ad in the Review for the Committee. Michael is going to talk to the Review editor-in-chief and suggest that the Review interview some past teaching award winners.

b. Linda reviewed the procedures and timing for deciding finalists and recipients. Nominations close for this year March 1^st. She will assign teams of readers who will come up with finalists that the whole committee will review.

c. Reminder: There are two meetings in March: March 7 (8:30 am) and March 14 (8:00 am)

4. The committee reviewed applications for new and revised awards for Honors Day Program booklet

a. Judy Cohen Schwartz Scholarship

b. David E. Hollowell Endowed Scholarship

c. Katherine L. Esterly Nursing Education Scholarship

There was a discussion about the titles of the awards and the confusion between scholarships, awards and fellowships. Mark mentioned that at other schools, awards mean a 1-time occurrence, scholarships mean an on-going award that is applied to college expenses (e.g. tuition, room and board) and fellowships are an on-going award that is a monetary award not automatically applied to college expenses. There was also a discussion about the amounts for each award—whether the awards were for $1,000 per student per award. Linda agreed to go back to the applicants and get more information about each of the 3 awards. The committee did approve the Gladys and Harry David Zutz Award because it clearly meets the established criteria for inclusion in the Honors Day book.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 a.m. Minutes recorded by Katharine C. Kerrane.