The Chairperson oversees the evaluation of applications for Semple, Benario and Grant awards. The eligibility requirements, deadlines and criteria are found on the Semple, Benario and Grant webpage. The duties of the Chairperson are as follows:
Mid-October
- The Chair establishes email contact with the members of the subcommittee, reminds them of the Jan. 15 application deadline and requests that they reserve a block of time within the three weeks following, in order to make timely decisions about the awards.
Mid-November
- The Chair forwards the promotional flyer with a short explanatory email to presidents of state teacher’s organizations and to Directors of Graduate Studies in eligible institutions.
January 1-15 (or earlier)
- The Chair answers questions regarding the awards from potential applicants, which generally begin at this time, copying the Secretary-Treasurer (currently Tom Sienkewicz) on replies to avoid duplication of responses.
January 15: deadline for applications.
- The Chair confirms the eligibility of applicants and, in the case of the Benario, programs and budgets. (Airfare is excluded.)
- The Chair contacts writers who have not submitted their letters and candidates with incomplete materials by this deadline to solicit missing materials. All materials are required by the time the award is made. The committee may not issue the award to an applicant whose file is incomplete.
- The chair and/or CAMWS student assistant compiles applications electronically in a shared storage space.
January 15-31
- The Chair solicits reasoned rankings from the committee and compiles the results in accordance with the committee Charter: by consensus, if possible, and by simple majority vote, if not. Committee members are expected to provide a rationale for their rankings and to rank all candidates.
- The committee must identify both winners and runners up.
Early February
- The Chair informs winners that they have received an award and confirms that they intend to accept it. Upon confirmation, the Chair informs runners up and other applicants and submits names to the Executive Committee and the Secretary Treasurer.
February 28
- The chair submits a one-two page report on the committee’s findings and recommendations for improving the process (previous reports can serve as a template).
March/April: CAMWS annual meeting
- The Chair and members of the committee attend the committee lunch in order to discuss recommendations for the following year.
- The Chair attends the business meeting in order to report the winners.
The c hair is ex-officio a member of the Steering Committee.