To:  Carmen Wilson, Chair, and Faculty Senate

From:  Mary Leonard, Chair of the Scholarship and Awards Committee – 2007-2008

Re:  Scholarship and Awards Committee Final Report

1.  The Scholarship and Awards Committee consisted of the following members:
   • Faculty:  Mary Leonard Anderson, Greg Belfany, Bradley Butterfield Al Gedicks, Jon Hassenbank, Janet Kirsch, Kathryn Majewski, Heather Mortell
   • Students:  Alexandra Vang, Valentine Sackmaan
   • Nonvoting:  Sara Olson (UWL Foundation Scholarship Coordinator)

2. Mary Leonard served as Chair and Bradley Butterfield served as secretary
3. The following members were not present at any meetings and did not participate in the ranking process:  Greg Belfany, Kathryn Majewski, Alexandra Vang
4. The Committee met four times during the year:

§         September 28, 2007 – Initial organizational meeting

§         February 8, 2008 – Establish timelines for reviewing scholarship files

§         March 7, 2008 – Ranking of all applicants/ establish interview questions

§         March 12, 2008 – Conduct Thrune Scholarship interviews

5. The following scholarships and awards were handled by the committee:

§         Lebieck Sholarship

§         McIlraith Scholarship

§         Xcel Energy Scholarship

§         Murphy Award

§         Fred Singer Scholarship

§         Michael Skemp Scholarship

§         Thrune Scholarship

§         Harold Weisse Scholarship

6. The committee adhered to the following procedures:

§         The committee established a two-person subcommittee responsible for reviewing the two scholarships with the most applicants – McIlraith and Lebiecki.

§         Jon Hassenbank created a ranking form sent out to all committee members.  The rankings were then compiled and distributed prior to the final meeting.  This was a very helpful system that aided in the decision process.

§         The Thrune Scholarship interviews were held at a separate meeting.

§         Sara Olson provided the committee with the various criteria for all of the scholarships and this was very helpful.  I feel that it was very important to remind committee members to pay close attention to the specific criteria for each scholarship.

A final Reflection: We lost some members along the course of the school year for a variety of reasons.  At this point it was too late to replace them.  The remaining group members dedicated themselves to the task at hand and were a very pleasant group to work with.  I appreciated the experience I gained from working on this committee.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Leonard

Department of Theatre Arts