Graduate Education Awards

Each year, Graduate Education acknowledges and congratulates outstanding graduates for their achievements and academic excellence. I consider these "university-level" awards, to distinguish from the College Awards and department awards of the same name.

Outstanding Graduate Award

Despite sharing the same name as awards at the college and department level, this award is much more selective and is rarely won by a student from our department. A single student from each College and the School of Education is selected to receive such an award. Although I still need to pin down the specifics, my understanding is that our department puts forth a nomination (usually chosen by the Graduate Committee), and then some higher-ups then vote on winners. Although I have never been privy to the actual voting process, we are told the following criteria are evaluated:

• academic achievements
• scholarly and professional potential
• service to the university or community
• other notable or outstanding characteristics that demonstrate excellence

Academic Excellence

Graduate Education also acknowledges academic excellence among our graduate students, but the process is quite different from the award above. Rather than submit nominations that are then voted upon by some committee, we simply inform Graduate Education of our choice^[1]. If approved, the student's name (somewhere? maybe in the graduation list at commencement?) is adorned with an asterisk, denoting their achievement of academic excellence.

The only criteria we are given for selection is:

• Master's degree candidates who are in the top 10% of their program and have institutional post-baccalaureate GPA's above 3.9 are eligible to be recognized

Contact