For people who have served on awards committees

[AOII Angel]

I was the chair of our Greek Awards committee in college and served on the committee for two years. The awards were judged based on an impartial system that I thought was fairly good. Each chapter submitted their awards packet and was informed that they couldn't include any identifying information in the description of their events, etc. Each application was numbered so that we could identify them once it was time to hand out the awards.

Judges were chosen from each chapter and from random people on campus and in the community that were not associated with any of the groups on campus but were well known in our area. The outside people helped cancel out the effect of people recognizing events even though no name was associated.(Not to mention letting people in the community see all the great things being done by all the groups on campus!) Each event was judged on multiple levels on a scale of 1-10. We threw out the top and bottom scores for each.

The nice thing was that we had a really diverse mix of award winners with this method. It didn't end up being a big popularity contest.

[VandalSquirrel]

One was through a place of employment, and awards were given out based on classification, as well as for teams who did something amazing. To decided how many awards were granted, we had a mathematical formula of how many people worked in each class, and sought a certain amount of nominees based on that number.

The people who rated/judged the nominees knew who they were, and we were assisted by previous year winners from each employment category. Everyone was based upon the same scale, but the packets varied widely as some people had a lot of support that didn't mean much, and others had a few letters that were really strong and informational (reminded me so much of the rec process for sorority recruitment, ha!).

Everyone on the committee read the nominees' supporting material, and there was discussion and a vote. it was kept secret until the ceremony, and all people who were qualified nominees were invited, as well as their coworkers.

As much as collegiate opinions may be valuable, it may be good to have just alumni do the scoring, though include student input in some of the categories. Maybe if the student is elected to an inter/national position and is already at a level of impartiality it could work.

I'd also make sure that chapters are looked at in a way there can be some "normalizing" of standards. Even if chapter A has the highest GPA, maybe chapter L brought there's up a larger percentage. If chapter Q did X amount of community service hours, it would be great to see how that spreads out over membership, and give an award for manpower, overall, and maybe for an individual. This can kind of spread the love around and I saw this work on my campus when events with participation changed from sheer numbers to percentages. Helped equalize the 100 man and 25 man groups for recognition. Maybe even include something for chapters to nominate non-members (administrators/professors/departments) who have been integral and useful, but aren't regular advisors.

[Senusret I]

Thank you so much for the responses. You guys bring up some great ideas. Especially:

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

Judges were chosen from each chapter and from random people on campus and in the community that were not associated with any of the groups on campus but were well known in our area.

The nice thing was that we had a really diverse mix of award winners with this method. It didn't end up being a big popularity contest.

We ESPECIALLY need the above -- thank you for that idea. And:

Originally Posted by VandalSquirrel

As much as collegiate opinions may be valuable, it may be good to have just alumni do the scoring, though include student input in some of the categories. Maybe if the student is elected to an inter/national position and is already at a level of impartiality it could work.

I'd also make sure that chapters are looked at in a way there can be some "normalizing" of standards.

I am not averse to the bolded idea, either.

I'd like to add that none of the categories that we're thinking about need to be normalized (thankfully). No GPA awards or man-mile awards.