2008 Woodie Awards
Calling Manhattan's Best and Brightest
Nicholas Marricco
Issue date: 10/13/04 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
Students and faculty of Manhattan College keep your eyes open: it's time to nominate the school's best and brightest.
USA TODAY has put out the call for the nation's top students to be a part of the paper's 15th annual All-USA College Academic Team. Sixty students will be chosen altogether, with the top twenty compromising the First Team. All members will be featured in a two-page color spread in the paper in February 2005. In addition, the twenty First Team members will each receive a $2,500 cash reward in recognition of their abilities.
The newspaper has a tradition of honoring the nation's best students that is almost two decades old. In 1987 Pat Ordovensky, an education reporter for the paper, noticed that it honored exceptional athletes by placing them on an All-USA Sports Team. He thought it appropriate that the country's best scholars, not just athletes, be honored as well, since it is their abilities that can greatly benefit our society. A high school program was begun, followed in 1990 by a four-year college program, and a two-year college program in 1991. The program itself was fashioned after an all-star sports team, with twenty slots filled by students who each excelled in different areas.
The nominee must be a full-time undergraduate of at least sophomore standing, and of course must excel academically. But the award will not honor good grades alone. An equally important element will be the student's reputation as a leader both on and off campus. The student will be expected to have achieved some sort of original academic or intellectual endeavor, which may have been in scholarly research, the arts, literature, community service, or public affairs. The judges will know very little firsthand about this project, and instead will be influenced by the nominee's ability to describe the effort in an essay. This essay carries the most weight in the judging process.
Make no mistake; these judges are definitely looking for the best of the best. To understand how competitive the award really is, consider two members of the 2004 First Team: Lubna Ahmad and Alexander Bradford. February of last year, Ahmad was a Junior at Arizona State, majoring in biomedical engineering. She invented and is waiting for a patent on a non-invasive breath sensor used in medical applications. She developed and taught a summer robotics-engineering program, and in addition taught and composed on the piano. Bradford, a Senior at Stanford University, worked as a volunteer with AIDS patients in Africa and Haiti, and lobbied for giving developing nations more access to antiviral AIDS drugs. He co-founded the AIDS Treatment Access Initiative, which sponsored walks across the country and was able to donate large sums of money to other AIDS organizations. Both students carried 4.0 averages at the times of their nomination.
Students like these most certainly stand out as the "best and brightest" of our generation. But this is a new year, and sixty new students are needed for the team. The question is: could one such student be at Manhattan College? Could you be one of them? If you think so, or if you know someone who could qualify, make it known. Talk to the student, talk to a faculty member, and pick up a nomination form at http://allstars.usatoday.com. Good luck to all nominees!
USA TODAY has put out the call for the nation's top students to be a part of the paper's 15th annual All-USA College Academic Team. Sixty students will be chosen altogether, with the top twenty compromising the First Team. All members will be featured in a two-page color spread in the paper in February 2005. In addition, the twenty First Team members will each receive a $2,500 cash reward in recognition of their abilities.
The newspaper has a tradition of honoring the nation's best students that is almost two decades old. In 1987 Pat Ordovensky, an education reporter for the paper, noticed that it honored exceptional athletes by placing them on an All-USA Sports Team. He thought it appropriate that the country's best scholars, not just athletes, be honored as well, since it is their abilities that can greatly benefit our society. A high school program was begun, followed in 1990 by a four-year college program, and a two-year college program in 1991. The program itself was fashioned after an all-star sports team, with twenty slots filled by students who each excelled in different areas.
The nominee must be a full-time undergraduate of at least sophomore standing, and of course must excel academically. But the award will not honor good grades alone. An equally important element will be the student's reputation as a leader both on and off campus. The student will be expected to have achieved some sort of original academic or intellectual endeavor, which may have been in scholarly research, the arts, literature, community service, or public affairs. The judges will know very little firsthand about this project, and instead will be influenced by the nominee's ability to describe the effort in an essay. This essay carries the most weight in the judging process.
Make no mistake; these judges are definitely looking for the best of the best. To understand how competitive the award really is, consider two members of the 2004 First Team: Lubna Ahmad and Alexander Bradford. February of last year, Ahmad was a Junior at Arizona State, majoring in biomedical engineering. She invented and is waiting for a patent on a non-invasive breath sensor used in medical applications. She developed and taught a summer robotics-engineering program, and in addition taught and composed on the piano. Bradford, a Senior at Stanford University, worked as a volunteer with AIDS patients in Africa and Haiti, and lobbied for giving developing nations more access to antiviral AIDS drugs. He co-founded the AIDS Treatment Access Initiative, which sponsored walks across the country and was able to donate large sums of money to other AIDS organizations. Both students carried 4.0 averages at the times of their nomination.
Students like these most certainly stand out as the "best and brightest" of our generation. But this is a new year, and sixty new students are needed for the team. The question is: could one such student be at Manhattan College? Could you be one of them? If you think so, or if you know someone who could qualify, make it known. Talk to the student, talk to a faculty member, and pick up a nomination form at http://allstars.usatoday.com. Good luck to all nominees!