Research and Creativity Award

Procedures and Guidelines

Each year, the Honors Program sponsors a competition to reward excellence in creativity and research by Carthage students. Projects submitted for consideration for these awards may take the form of an essay, an original experiment, a musical composition, a video, a lesson plan, a painting, and more. Amounts awarded vary from year to year, but it is typical to have one First Place Award of $500, and three Honor Awards of $150 each.

Submission Guidelines

To be considered for these awards, students should submit the following to Cindy Welch, program assistant for Honors, Lentz Hall Room 235.

1. A cover sheet with your name, local address, preferred e-mail address and telephone number, and  the name or title of your project. Your name should NOT appear on any other parts of your submission (nor should that of any instructor).

2. A written description (no more than 500 words) of your project. Explain to the faculty jury not just what your project is, but something significant about your process of research and/or creation, and something about why the project is significant to you or others. This piece will play a very important role in the evaluation of projects. No names please.

3. The project itself. Every care will be taken to protect your materials. You should take every care to package the projects safely. No names please.

Entries not prepared as described above may not be considered by the faculty jury.

Judging

The Honors Program acknowledges the challenge of judging diverse projects — for example a children's story and a chemistry experiment — to determine which is the most creative or best researched. At the same time, we remain convinced that there are qualities of mind that a community of scholars can recognize and value from a variety of perspectives — qualities of mind that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. It is these qualities of mind — for example, the ability to ask the right questions, knowing how to frame answers to questions with elegance and clarity, confidence and grace in communicating an idea or feeling or discovery — that these awards seek to encourage and celebrate.

Projects may be exhibited at the Honors Convocation or in display cases in Hedberg Library, whenever possible. Winners will be announced at the Honors Convocation in A. F. Siebert Chapel. Please plan to attend if you submit a project in this competition.

Questions?

If you need clarification in preparing your project, please consult Cindy Welch or Prof. Paul Ulrich (e-mail is often best).

Students: Please don't be shy. Don't be modest. Show us your stuff. We want to celebrate and reward your work.

Faculty: Please encourage students you recognize as having achieved excellence in some form of research and/or creativity to submit their work for consideration.

"I entered the Honors Program to raise the bar for myself, and to open intellectual doors that I otherwise might have just passed by."

Brandon Begotka, '05