Students attending this year’s honors program may notice a difference in how things are being run from last year.
“In the past, the ceremony has been a lot of pages of awards that recognized students on different levels,” Rand Ziegler, vice president and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said. “We wanted to combine the recognition ceremony with a research and composing symposium.”
The symposium is from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. May 2 in Collins Center. Some students being recognized will set up stations to present the work they are being awarded for.
An alternation between two sessions and presentations and two sessions of recognitions will take place. Two awards will be given away for the presentations.
“We wanted the awards to be more meaningful,” Erin Joyce, coordinator of the honors program, said.
Students will be recognized for accomplishments ranging from the outstanding 401 paper to the Milan-Harris scholarship, as well as those students that have been successful at conferences and worked for external scholarships.
The idea to change the award ceremony came from a trial version done for the Baker University Board of Trustees last year.
Joyce said the mini-symposium was a hit and made Ziegler think it should be something they should do on a larger scale.
“Too many people thought the previous way of doing the ceremony was too much like graduation,” Assistant Professor of Biology Randy Miller said. “Very few people actually attended.”
Miller hopes the new program for the award ceremony will be a more interactive way to display student accomplishments so that more people will attend.
Ziegler said planning for the award ceremony has been taking place for most of the semester.
“This is a celebration of the work students have done,” Ziegler said. “It is an honor for them to be chosen to present.”