Alumni Recognition Award Criteria

Criteria for Selection

The purpose of this award is to recognize annually a S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities graduate who has continued to embody the values and mission of the residential high school program.

Our mission is very clear regarding the values we expect each student to adopt while a member of the SCGSAH community. According to the mission, in terms of student characteristics, we value:

RESPONSIBILITY. Students share the responsibility for their learning.

INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY. Students are best prepared to meet life's challenges by becoming critical and creative thinkers and problem solvers.

GROWTH. The school seeks to provide a solid foundation for continued artistic and academic development.

SERVICE LEARNING. Students benefit from extending what they learn in the classroom to the arena of the larger community.

Therefore, this award seeks to honor an alumnus or alumna who has taken these values to heart in the years since graduating, someone for whom art has remained a priority in his/her life, someone who has:

Continued to cultivate a personal responsibility for his/her intellectual growth
Maintained a keen intellectual curiosity about the world
Continued to evolve positively as a thinker and artist
Contributed in positive ways to his/her community

Eligibility Requirements

Alumni of the SCGSAH residential program are eligible for nomination, beginning with the 7^th anniversary of their graduation.

Nomination and Selection Process

On or around November 1^st of each year, a call for nominations will be distributed to faculty, staff, administration, SCGSAH supporters in the community and the SCGSAH Alumni Association.

The deadline for receiving nominations will be the following January 31^st.

Nominations should be made in the form of a letter addressed to the award selection committee. The letter should state clearly how the candidate meets the “criteria for selection.” In addition to the letter, the nominating party may include any material he/she feels supports the candidate, e.g., vitae, resumes, newspaper/magazine articles, reviews, published works, etc., as long as the additional information is pertinent to the criteria for selection.

The award selection committee will consist of the following:

The Dean (standing member)
Representative from the Arts Faculty
Representative from the Academic Faculty
Representative from Student Services
Representative from the SCGSAH Foundation
Representative from Enrollment, Outreach, or Guidance
Alumni Representative (the Alumni Affairs Coordinator, unless the Coordinator is not a SCGSAH alumn)

The selection will be made by a consensus of the committee and not by individual votes. If the committee members feel strongly that two nominations are worthy of receiving the award, they may elect to honor two alumni in a single year.

It is incumbent upon both nominators and the award selection committee to be cognizant of diversity when nominating and choosing a recipient.

The committee will make its recommendation to the GSA Foundation during the first week of February each year.

Award

The award itself will be an original piece of art—to be decided.

In addition to receiving the award, the honoree will be asked to deliver a presentation to the student body, sharing his or her experiences following graduation from Governor’s School. The exact nature of this presentation will be, obviously, up to the recipient, with guidance from the award selection committee.

The Foundation will be responsible for the honoree’s travel/lodging expenses.