Recognizing Academic Achievement
 

I've been restructuring our scholarship program, and recognizing good grades is something that still stumps me. I'm working on a limited budget ($100) with a chapter of about 50 women (depending on how many we gain through recruitment). I'm absolutely stumped for ideas. What are some things your chapters have done that would be low cost?

All members with above a certain semester GPA at the end of the semester are raffled into a drawing for a $100 scholarship? If it proves a success you can ask for more in the next budget. Conversely maybe have 2 winners and do that or subtract that amount from their dues for the next semester.

We do a few things that seem to work really well.

We have a "get caught studying program" where someone who is seen by our scholarship chair studying during the week (not during study hours) gets a candy bar presented to them at chapter.

Also something really fun is the "No Skippy" jar. We pass a cleaned out skippy peanut butter jar around at chapter and if you haven't skipped any classes that week (its the honor system) you can put your name in the jar. Then our scholarship chair draws a name and that person gets something small (candy bar, $5 gift card to starbucks, etc).

We also have a scholarship banquet where we give out awards (just paper awards you can buy for around $10 a pack) for various things... most improved GPA (senior, junior, sophomore, freshman), Highest GPA, Highest GPA science majors etc. Its fun because the catagories are almost limitless.

We also do Sigma Kafe... a study night once a month were all those in attendance are entered to win a small prize... a SigKap notebook, or old tshirt (we usually have tons left over in our basement).

Hope some of these suggestions help!

Last semester we just started a new thing at meetings. We pass around a jar and we write a person's name down that has done great academically with a description of why they are nominated (it could be someone else or yourself). At the end of the meeting, the VP Scholarship would draw a name and read off the name and why. That person would receive the "scholarship paddle" for the week and they were to bring the paddle back to the next meeting for another person to get it.