CAMWS Undergraduate Awards Subcommittee Chair

CAMWS UNDERGRADUATE AWARDS SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIR

 

The Chair of the CAMWS Undergraduate Awards Sub Committee Charter: https://camws.org/undergrad-com-charter) oversees the committee’s evaluation of both the Manson A. Stewart Undergraduate Awards and the Faculty-Undergraduate Collaborative Research Grants. The eligibility requirements, deadlines and criteria for each award are found on the webpages indicated. Note that subcommittee is free to establish internal criteria for ranking of candidates, provided such criteria do not conflict with the rules of the subcommittee charter.The Chair is appointed by the President, typically for a three year term which can be renewed once.

 

The chair is also an ex-officio member of the CAMWS Steering Committee on Awards and Scholarship (Charter: https://camws.org/steer-com-charter).

 

Duties for the Undergraduate Awards Subcommittee Chair

 

Correspond promptly to email inquiries about the award.

Correspond promptly to the Chair of the Steering Committee on Awards and Scholarships

Correspond promptly with the Secretary-Treasurer and co-ordinate as unexpected items arise through the year.

 

Schedule of Duties for the Undergraduate Awards Subcommittee Chair

 

Summer / August

The chair

  1. Ensures that subcommittee membership page and both award pages are up to date for the coming year on the CAMWS website.
  2. Works with the Secretary-Treasurer to update the associated web forms and auto-response emails on the website.
  3. Discusses with subcommittee what internal criteria, if any, will be applied for the year. Ensure that all members have a written copy should such criteria be agreed.
  4. Follows up with recipients of previous Faculty-Undergraduate Collaborative Research Grants, who are expected to submit a final report at the end of the project (no later than a semester after the receipt of the award). The report is to include statements by both student and faculty as well as a summary report about the money spent. Any funds remaining are to be returned to CAMWS after the final report is submitted.

October

The chair sends reminder email to membership about the Faculty-Undergraduate Collaborative Research grants. Both awards are regularly announced in the Fall Newsletter, but it usually comes out only 10-15 days before the normal submission deadline of November 15.

 

November

The chair

  1. Distributes submission portfolios to committee.
  2. Provides committee with clear deadline for return or rankings. Note: to date, the number of applications has matched the number of available awards. In this case, the committee’s task is merely that of gate-keeper not ranker. We affirm that the project is reasonable and worthy of the grant.

December

The chair

  1. Notifies the Secretary-Treasurer of results
  2. Notifies applicants of results.
  3. Has abstracts of the projects posted on the website (https://camws.org/previousresearchprojects)

January

Undergraduate nominations due on January 6th. The full application materials (student application with essay, transcript, two recommendation letters), on January 30th.

 

While waiting for complete application materials to arrive, the chair may find it useful to notify the subcommittee regarding the number of nominations received so that they can plan their time in February accordingly.

 

The chair

  1. Confirm to nominator and student when all materials have been received.Tra
  2. Transmits applications to other subcommittee members with clear indication of deadline for return, which must provide readers with sufficient time to evaluate but must also ensure that results are final at least one month prior to the Annual Meeting (either the last week of February or first week of March, in most years).

For purposes of the application, unofficial transcripts are acceptable. Should the student be selected as an award recipient, the CAMWS office will require an official transcript for verification if one is not already on file.

Note: because of the number and size of the files, the most effective way to do this will be through a shared cloud drive, e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Box. Many institutions have email rules that restrict attachments.

 

February:

Subcommittee members read and rank student applications. Chair consolidates and averages the rankings as they are returned. A spreadsheet is the best tool for this purpose.

 

Early March or earlier:

The chair

  1. Consolidates and averages remaining rankings. Submit list of top students to committee for discussion.
  2. Once the list is final, notifies the CAMWS office so that a award certificates can be prepared in time for the annual meeting.
  3. Prepares a formal report for the subcommittee’s activities for the year and submit to the Chairperson of the CAMWS Steering Committee on Awards and Scholarships.
  4. Notifies each applicant of outcome with cc: to nominating faculty.
  5. Updates CAMWS webpage with award recipients for the year.

Note: Typically six awards are made per annum if there are six qualified applicants. In cases of exceptional merit and sufficient financial stability, and with the approval of the Executive Committee, the subcommittee may make additional awards.

 

Annual Meeting:
The Chair

  1. Attends lunch (typically midday Thursday) with members of the Sub-Committee to review the year's work and make recommendatiions for the future
  2. Attends a meeting of the Steering Committee
  3. Attends the Business Meeting on Saturday morning and announces the winner(s) or delegates another member of the Sub-Committe to do so

April/May
The Chair

  1. Requests the official transcripts from the CAMWS office and compares them with the unofficial documents submitted with the applications and authorizes payments to the award recipients.