Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

This thread is to discuss the FIRST Deans List with the intent that our ideas and constructive criticism will be shared with the selection committee of the award with the purpose of continuous improvement.

I would like to start be thanking FIRST and the Dean’s List selection committee for creating this award so that our outstanding students can receive personal recognition, and for the committee's many hours spent organizing the finalists from each regional, and the hours poured over each essay to attempt to select the cream of the crop of a stack of highly qualified individuals. Having FIRST on one’s resume opens doors for students, having Dean’s List busts that door down!

I would like to ask the Chiefdelphi community to brainstorm ideas on what they would like to see improved on the Dean's List, be it the selection criteria, award ceremony, or any part of the process between the nomination of the student to the final recognition of the award.
Are there things still left ambiguous that we would like to have cleared up in the selection criteria? (ie, is need considered? Is only time spent on FRC teams considered, or does time in FIRST on FLL/FTC apply? Is the selection committee interested in other volunteer activities outside of FIRST?)

Here are some of my thoughts, feel free to build upon them, or add your own.

The award ceremony at the World Championship Event: 2012 ceremony viewable here
• Please post a high quality video link on the FIRST website
• The event was held in the ballroom, students, parents, and supportive team members alike all crowded in the same spot. It would be great to see all of the finalists highlighted in some way before the ceremony begins. Have special seating next to the stage for all of the finalists, or at least a standing area where they can meet and network.
• While I understand there is not enough time during the ceremony to read of every name of all of the finalists, what about a pre-show video of the nominees stating their names, team, and nominating regional?
• Special roped off area, where each team of nominee can give 1 or 2 “press badges” for the event to be at the front. I had to keep asking the very tall fellow in front of my group to please allow our nominee’s mother and grandmother see the stage.

Share the information with the world!
I do not see a list of the finalists on the FIRST website, other than each regional’s award section. Perhaps a link to http://itsthedeanslist.wordpress.com/ would be nice, and help build the content. I would like to read each of the winning submissions, but the essays are not posted anywhere.

The selection criteria: What FIRST wants in its Dean’s List winners.

Here is the elephant in the room, so I am putting a disclaimer that the following is in opinion of my own, not to be reflected on my team, or any other group I for which I am affiliated.

For the 2012 Dean’s list Award this was added to the selection criteria. Through the regional process, 114 finalists were selected, each I am certain is completely deserving of to be a Deans List Winner and I cannot even imagine how difficult it was to narrow this list down to 10.
Of the 10 finalists, 9 were juniors. I do not know the statistics of the 114, but I am willing to bet that 90% of them were not juniors, I would expect something closer to 50/50, and would expect a smaller number had the above lines not been in the selection criteria. I certainly extend a huge congratulations to the winners of the awards, as I previously stated, I am certain they are all very deserving individuals and will continue on to keep doing the great works in their communities.

Unintended consequences
As discussed in a previous thread
FIRST should be aware that there are concerns that the emphasis is no longer on promoting the students that best exemplifies the ideals of FIRST, but on the students FIRST believe has the best chance on winning scholarships from prestigious colleges and universities.

The ramifications of this: Mentors that are nominating students now must decide do they nominate the student that has made the biggest impact on the team and their community, OR the student that has the best chance at winning a scholarship and the award. Nominating a senior automatically places that student at a disadvantage, and nominating a junior could be passing up well deserving seniors. Regionals that have received a mix of nominations are forced with the same decision, do they promote a senior the best fits the ideals found in the Chairmans award, even if it knocks out a junior who is more likely to win at the championship level?

Here is my plea. If FIRST chooses to make a drastic change to rules involving a preference in age of the student, give teams a year of advanced warning. In 2011 teams that nominated seniors with the intention the then juniors could be nominated the following year gave these students a huge disadvantage. Even still, other teams read the criteria and decided to only nominate juniors, completely leaving many deserving seniors with no possibility of receiving the opportunities given by the Dean’s List. In either case, I am sorry for the FIRST senior class of 2012, and highly suggest to each team to make sure your students realize they are valued. Mentors that went with the “juniors only” strategy are probably unaware of the unintended consequences they have inflicted.

Here are my suggestions, I would love to hear others.
• Enlist the help of prestigious colleges. Give every school that offers a free ride tuition for all Deans List Winners a spot on the selection committee, and let each school select 1 member to the Dean’s List. This accomplishes FIRST’s desire to get the students names in front of the colleges, and the colleges' desire to pick the cream of the crop. It will increase the number of Dean’s list Winners, and all students will be offered free ride scholarships from all colleges with members on the selection committee. Everyone wins.
• Change the rules back to where there is no emphasis on grade, age, gender, income, or any factors that is not “exemplifying the ideals of FIRST.” The colleges already selected the students they would like to pick, have 10 students in addition to whoever the colleges select.
• OR at the very least… Make the Dean’s List Winners 20 students total, 10 Juniors, 10 seniors. I like this idea less, but would at least be a move in the right direction.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I really like this idea!

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I think this is a great idea. I'd like to see something with photos and maybe a quote/fun fact for each person, and it would be really awesome if FIRST would post it on their website after the ceremony.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

It would be nice to see them recognized in a space that isn't "off-site" relative to the robots, because more than just the finalists teams/fans should be celebrating the students.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

This is kind of cool to read right now, since my family and I will be meeting with the 10 Championship winners this week as they come up to Manchester for the Supplier's and Dean's List Summits here at FIRST. One of my 'jobs' this week is going to be talking to the Dean's List winners, and asking how we can improve both the Dean's List award, and how the winners can help FIRST improve things as well.

Now, the only person on the selection committee that I've really spent time talking to about this is my grandmother, so I've only got one perspective. Most essays certainly include all these things - volunteer hours, other FIRST programs - and as long as it's included in the essay, it's read and considered. Nana don't skim, folks.

Agreed with all of these. Being able to get the finalists together would be really cool.

Here's the only issue with that- that's a privately run website that doesn't affiliate with FIRST. There's no editorial control, and what's published there probably will not represent the actual views of FIRST the organization. So, endorsing it from the website can be kind of tricky.


I'm not doubting the 'consequences' as you state them, but the point of FIRST encouraging you to nominate a junior is because they want to be able to help those kids GET a scholarship or an entrance to college.

It's not at all that FIRST is promoting the 'kids with the best chance'.

Think of it this way. by the time the Dean's List is announced, seniors in high school have already been accepted to colleges, and are probably right about on the deadline for submitting their choice. (I know mine for Clarkson in '09 was May 1.) So, yes, winning the Dean's List is a substantial honor no matter what, but what if that same senior had been nominated the year before? Maybe they could have gotten an extra scholarship, or gotten into that reach school that they might not have without the Dean's List honor on top of their FIRST experience. A leader is a leader no matter what year they are in school.

If your team only happens to have senior leaders, then by all means nominate a senior. But if you've got someone who, by their junior year, is already kickin' butt and taking names as a leader on your team, giving them the Dean's List award is giving them an incredible honor AND a jump-start to their college options.

Yes and no. Part of why Dean created the Dean's list award is to have this be something selected by the Kamen family. That's what's supposed to make it special.

However, I do think that's an interesting idea to follow. Instead, why not take those colleges and universities that sponsor FIRST and mail them the essays for the Winners (or maybe the top 20 or 30- not enough to overwhelm them by sending 114 entries) - it'd be like college recruiters going to a sports game - but we can bring the students to them. That way, the schools get to pick from the cream of the crop, as you said, but the idea behind the award is still maintained. (I think you'd have a hard time getting schools to offer 10 free rides (that aren't for sports) at this point in the life of the Dean's List Award. 10 years from now? Maybe. We'll bring the culture change, it'll just take time.

I don't know where in the Dean's List documentation you see that the selection is done by ANY of those factors besides giving preference to grade. If you can show me that, please let me know. I don't really see that.

Based on your view of how the award's selected, this would be a good solution. However, you're operating from the viewpoint that FIRST is picking juniors because they're juniors, not because they're leaders. Remember that superstars will shine no matter what.


--

All in all, good points, especially about the ceremony. I'll pass this on as an addition to my report on what the Dean's List Winners think.

(EDIT, for clarification: I've been reading some other posts on Dean's List and I agree that the foundation of the award, from the outside, looks like they're picking juniors because they'll get into college with it. I completely agree that the award should be about leaders. And based on the conversations I've had with the selection committee, it really is about leaders. No junior is getting the Dean's List because they didn't earn it, and happen to be in their junior year. The fact remains, however, that the DLA is of 'more use' in a practical sense to a junior than a senior. So why not nominate that 'shining senior' when they are a shining junior? I know this is moot for the DLA Class of '12, but I hope some of you can see my point.)

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Libby,

This is not to take away from the students that have been nominated or have received DL.....or DLF

The issue that people are having, (and I'm sure that has been covered in other threads) is that the definition of DL has shifted.

It was originally a leadership sustainability thing, concerned with the long term future of FIRST.

This past year it transformed into a university talent identification recruitment thing that telegraphs the value of FIRST to the public, by universities being attracted to FIRST talent.

I don't care to debate the merits here in this thread but it clearly needs to be decided what the goals are. For all practical purposes, seniors are sidelined in regards to national DL recognition. The numbers clearly state that, 90% in St. Louis.

It wouldn't hurt to involve university admission directors in the conversation if the goal is talent identification, especially considering the current structure is in part about universities validating the public value of FIRST, in addition to validating the desirability of DL students.

I cannot speak for other teams but from my perspective our local focus for the seniors is to apply our efforts to finding other avenues to support the recruitment and scholarship efforts. Our DL efforts will then have to be focused on juniors. Even though the seniors typically ( not always ) have the most experience and longest track record.

Best Regards,
Ed Barker

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

To be fair, correlation (on one data point) does not imply causation. Deciding on DL candidates in such a way only creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I do not have much time to reply at the moment, but definitely appreciate your well thought out responses. I immidiately wanted to post that I did not intend to indicate that I believe the Deans list takes into account some of the factors I posted, and I will reword later. I think the grade and age are synonomous, but do not believe the award discriminates on any other factors.

Also, I am writing this fully with the assumptions the 2012 Dean's List Winners are all the most deserving candidates, and again would like to express my congratulations and appreciation for inspiring their communities. I do not know any of them personally, and have not been able to find their nominating essays, so it would be silly for me to believe anything different.

Edit: I am unable to update my original post.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I am honestly failing to see evidence of the idea that the perspective has shifted. From my seat at the Dean's List Ceremony, it looked like colleges were taking notice of the Dean's List Finalists, from the speeches I'd heard. Not that the award had been rewritten to serve those guests of FIRST.

I'm looking for clarification here. (Like I said in my last post, one of my jobs this week with having the winners up here is to help improve the Dean's List Award...) Is the encouragement of juniors to apply (because of the benefits it can have) really tainting the image of the award? I am being 100% honest when I say I don't understand.

I've written several nominations and I write for juniors that I know are going to continue to be shining leaders in their senior year, because of the advantages winning the award can bring them at that point in their high school career. And then next year, when they're seniors? I nominate a new junior who's an upcoming leader as well. I don't consider it a slight to the seniors at all. Am I the only person with this perspective?

I'd love to hear more on this, because it will really help with my perspective as we continue to develop the Dean's List Award.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I agree, and would take it one step further. As I read the original Dean's List nomination suggestions, it seemed to me that the DL would give students an extra push toward future successes - whether that be scholarships, college acceptances, what have you.
However, the students that have been chosen were cream-of-the-crop, already going to set the world on fire but here's another trophy for your buckling mantle kids. I'm not saying these kids don't deserve recognition - most of them already had buckets of it, and absolutely let's celebrate the best and brightest. I unfortunately misinterpreted the goal as for students who have struggled and overcome to gain their accomplishments, which may be meager compared to some of their peers, but deserve recognition nonetheless. And the DL would allow them that extra push to persevere through senior year and beyond.
That's the shift I've encountered.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I would like to see some seating for families. My 78 year old mother was there along with many other grandparents. They stood for more than an hour to see if their grand child would win. Not only was that way to long for her to be standing she was in the middle of a kind of mosh pit and got josseled more than once. She is also very tiny as were some of the other grandmas and I was worried she was going to take out the rude gentleman in front of her blocking the stage.

She was disappointed that all of the finalist were not recognized in some way. My suggestion is to let them all walk in at the beginning of the ceremony so the audience can applaud them. I also like the idea of a slide show while we wait for the show to begin.

One of my teams problems with the ceremony was timing. We had a deans list finalist and also one of the first matches after lunch. Our coach was her brother and our human player her boyfriend. They had to choose between missing a match or being there with her to support her. This could be solved if the ceremony was at a different time.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

As a mentor who has written 3 Dean's List awards and on a team that has won at the Regional Level 4 times and once, (this year) at the National level, I feel I must comment. I will leave the ceremony details to the event organizers, they understand this so much better than I ever will. Clearly in a new event there are improvements.

As to the giving of scholarships, many schools have a "blind need" policy. That means it doesn't matter how good a student is, it is based on your family's ability to pay, ie the FAFSA and CS-Profile. Every student and parent should understand this policy and how it can affect them.

Our team has always and will always nominate juniors, that made sense to us. We did it in 2010 and will keep doing it. And we always include the students non-FRC accomplishments, we think they add greatly in defining who that student is and we post all our award submissions on our website.

http://www.team1912.com/docs/dl_rholladay.html
http://www.team1912.com/docs/dl_hsorrell.html
http://www.team1912.com/docs/dl_azhou.html
http://www.team1912.com/docs/dl_ccollins.html

To give to award the National stature the founders' intended, Juniors must be the recipients. Like National Merit, by giving it to Juniors, it creates for FRC better recognition world-wide and gives those students a chance to have one more year to help promote FIRST in their region. Awards from any organization promote both the recipient and the awarding organization. All FRC awards should promote students, teams, and FIRST. If you are truly interested in changing the culture, giving this award to Juniors provides the greatest benefit to the students, the teams, and FIRST.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Thinking about this more today, thought I may toss out another idea that could give the topic of conversation some more focus. This post is not directed at the current selection committee, Libby, or anyone specifically, just the general reader of this post. Lets play a game:

You are a member of the selection committee for the Dean's list. the committee has already selected some nominees to be winners, but still must pick some more, it is your job to help narrow down the list. The following students have completely equal credentials, have all inspired their community, and display leadership qualities. Rank in your mind who you believe deserves it most, and who deserves it least. Again, all candidates are completely equal, except for what is listed.

Student A is a Junior who plans to apply to one of the prestigious schools which the Dean's List criteria is referencing.

Student B is a Senior who has already been accepted to one of the prestigious schools the Dean's List criteria is referencing.

Student C is a junior who dreams to go to one of the prestigious schools which the Dean's List criteria is referencing, however indicates there is no way he/she can afford it without serious financial aid.

Student D is a junior or senior, but will only apply to a local college because he/she has family obligations who depend on him/her to stay local.

Student E is a junior or senior, and intends to major in education, journalism, business, political science, or art, and has no interest in attending any of the prestigious schools which the Dean's List criteria is referencing.

Student F is a junior or senior, but had an extremely rough freshman year of high school, turned it around, but still has horrible GPA and SAT score, and can not possibly be accepted to prestigious schools which the Dean's List criteria is referencing.


Again, everything is completely identical except for the above. This is why it is hard to be a judge, because with 144 applications, I am sure many decisions like this had to be made, and you are on a committee with people that think differently from you. Any decision you make gives a different perception of what everyone thinks the award is "actually" about, and in every circumstance someone gains, and others are unhappy. Lets brainstorm what can be done to help remedy these issues.

My opinions below just thinking out loud: only worth $0.02

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Very interesting exercise, a few new thoughts on the venue aspect first. In Atlanta, the DL ceremony was outside. Bad idea and very hot. The room at St. Louis was a huge improvement. As to having the finalists stand in a special area, ours liked being with their team during the ceremony and making the walk thru the crowd.

As to time, I noticed almost all the winners were wearing driver's buttons. That says, the finish time should be 12:30, to give everyone time to get to their matches. Or just allow more time for the ceremony and have the matches start at 1:30.

As to student A-F, getting into one of the prestigious schools is never a guarantee. Most get 15-18k applicants for 1500 slots. One of the reasons a very few get into so many prestigious schools is example, Intel Science Search. Everyone knows what that award is about and an outside committee (not a group of admissions officers) did the very difficult job of selecting, so admissions offices think very highly of that award. I think this award was created to be the equivalent of Intel Science Search. So again, its about Juniors and getting the FIRST brand in front of as many as possible.

Also I think its extremely important to read the criteria, just as it is to answer in a college essay the question asked. The award, like Woody Flowers, stresses technical expertise as well as outreach. While non-technical students can carry FIRST forward, the ones "most likely to" tend to be engineering. I would modify this to include the big 4 sciences, but that is another topic.

As to the bad freshman year, I think admissions officers and awards selection people, love a "turnaround" story. Its more compelling than "I was always a 4.0 person". As to perfect SATs, many with 2400s don't get in to the prestigious schools and I work with a women who had a 510 on her english SAT and went to MIT.

Again everyone should understand how financial aid is awarded. When someone gets a full ride to Harvard, that means their parents were poor. The prestigious schools give no merit scholarships, everyone is merit.

FIRST does list the DL winners on their site, under the CMP page
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...frc-cmp-awards

right below Chairman and Competition winners. All 10 names and their teams are listed.

As to building up resumes with awards, we do it where I work all the time. I think to say, some don't need awards because they have so many is not a valid statement. In general, awards are always a positive, even if you don't win. They are out there to inspire and motivate.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Thank you- this is what I'm trying to say, but you say it much better.

Now, on to Barry's.

Unless you write it into your essay, nobody knows your kid's financial situation. And why, oh why, would you write that into your essay? Spend that word count extolling their virtues instead. I get mentioning that they come from a certain background, as context, but writing out how they can't afford college? The Dean's List is not a scholarship. It can lead to them, but there is a whole page of FIRST Scholarships they can apply for.

The Dean's List Award is to celebrate outstanding leadership. I agree that maybe the focus on technical expertise is a little too much (as a Communications & Digital Media major, I wouldn't say that I've -failed- the mission of FIRST, because I found my passion.) So, yes, maybe that wording gets changed a little.

I agree, I don't like submitting GPA's either, but my thought is it's there because then you don't have to spend half your essay explaining their situation. It gives context, and maybe even helps explain a turnaround. As Wendy said,

So rather than :deadhorse: , I'd love to see some additional improvements/suggestions to the Dean's List award.

I'll leave you with the Dean's List criteria to think about.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Simple solution: Need more Kamens.

OK, seriously: I competely agree with and support the stated purposes of the Dean's List award. Perhaps some of the details can be improved - placing the event more front & center, for example - but none of the purported flaws are fatal.

I like this thread because it helps bring out topics / problems in the program that people may wish to bring to the attention of decision-makers. But please be sure that comments remain constructive - your opinions are indisputable, but beware of opinions disguised as facts. In other words take extra pains to argue thoughtfully, or risk having your opinions dismissed.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Haaaaaaaa. Yeah. Sorry, I'm the only one of my generation. I guess we're a rare breed. :P

Can we please make that statement a general disclaimer for CD? Thanks.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I took some time before replying to this thread because I wanted to make sure I represented the ideas of multiple seniors accurately. What is missing from this discussion so far is the opinions from the Class of 2012.

I conducted an anonymous survey of our team's class of 2012, on SurveyMonkey.com. I asked the following questions

1. Do you believe that FIRST encouraging mentors to nominate juniors influenced Team 79 Mentors to select two juniors in 2012?

2. "Does encouraging mentors to nominate Juniors taint the Dean's List award?" -Libby Kamen I would really appreciate your views on this question. No one is being judged or argued with. Class of 2012 deserves to be heard.

Of 6 seniors, I have the results from 4.

Question 1 is mixed opinions of Yes and No.
Question 2 is unanimously Yes.

Before anyone posts "The class of 2012 seniors should not feel that way because..." Please keep in mind a few things

1: Libby asked for our opinion, the best way to not receive them is to criticize opinions once they are given

2: Whether they should or should not feel that way is not the point. The point is that I am verifying there is a negative perception in at least a small group of people, and there exists the possibility this is true with many other teams.

3: If the class of 2012 feels this way now, what does that do to all of the effort currently going into building a strong alumni base


While I can not give the opinions of the mentors, or verify anything about how they actually chose the nominees this year, here are the facts that give a little background of where the 2012 seniors on my team are coming from:
1: Specifics on how the mentors choose the Dean's List nominees has not been told to us, leaving us only to create our own perceptions.
2: In 2010 my team nominated 2 Seniors, and again in 2011 the team nominated 2 Seniors. In 2012 the team nominated 2 Juniors.

I would like to take this moment to say both Juniors and Seniors this year did contribute a lot to our team, and the juniors did deserve to be nominated for the Dean's List, as Barry stated I am not trying to take anything away from them. I am only trying to help FIRST understand what perceptions the seniors have, because we were asked for our opinion.

FIRST can not control how its' teams make management decisions, but should be aware that yes, a simple encouragement to nominate juniors can create a perception that taints the award.


If any team decides to nominate only juniors, this how I would suggest they handle it:

Please be upfront and honest with the students as it is negatively impacting and tell the seniors at the beginning of the year that they are not going to be picked this year, it is heartbreaking to do this in the middle of a competition when teamwork is key to success. However, make sure the seniors are recognized for their contributions to the team in some other fashion, and provide other avenues for them to help them receive scholarships and opportunities. I am glad the juniors received this opportunity but do not believe Deans List should give preference to a grade or age. It should only be about leadership, what they have done to spread FIRST to the community, and show gracious professionalism on and off the field. Please have the committee brainstorm on a system where seniors can be nationally recognized without it being at the expense of juniors' opportunities to be accepted to college.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I really like the Dean's List Award.

To go through some of the points discussed in this thread...

Awards Ceremony - At Regionals - It will be nice when it settles into a routine. The first two years the award was given between the EI and the RCA award at the regionals we attended. This year at FLR they tied it with a special presentation and speaker which moved it to Saturday morning. I thought the presentation was wonderful and the special time slot befitting the award. However we had told the parents of the nominees that it would be Saturday afternoon, not morning. By luck, the parents were there of the student from our team who was selected as a finalist.

At Championships - I wish there was more time to make the presentation and that it didn't get sandwiched between matches making it difficult for teams to attend if they have a last match or first match surrounding the lunch break. But I wish that about many of the events at Championships. Everything is shoehorned in and that's the way it will stay as long as the whole event is a Robot Competition. I like that it is a separate event from the final awards ceremony, but I wish that they would bring all the finalists up for a photo op before making the announcement. I think the students enjoyed the party atmosphere and the ice cream was a great touch this year!

Someone mentioned having the students have a chance to get together at Championships. Every year so far there has been a grassroots effort to have the students meet, two years as part of Robo Prom and this year as a side event to the All Rookie Meet and Greet. Students seem all gung ho about attending, but only a few make it. I think the reality of the Championship schedules hit and the students realize how hard it is to add just one more thing to their schedules, especially if the students are the team leaders, on drive team, in pit crew, etc. And they often are, that's what makes them stand our in their teams to be the Dean's List Nominee.

As far as the criteria go, I think it is well written and developed. At least for our team as we've had a Dean's List finalist in each of the three years. We have always selected Juniors. To our mentors, the benefits of the award to the Juniors outweighs the benefits to the Seniors and has since the beginning. If we felt that we did not have a junior who met the criteria, we would certainly nominate a senior, but our preference has always been a junior. Our nominees have always had a level of technical expertise to include in the nomination essay, because our team stresses the technical aspects balanced with the leadership and the non technical aspects of team management, so we haven't hit a concern over nominating a non tech student for the award.

The only part of the nomination process that we do not like is including the student's GPAs. Most of our Juniors do not know their GPAs because they are just beginning the college application process. To get the GPAs we have to have the students interested on being nominated for the award request that their GPAs be released to the mentors preparing the essays. But it is good practice for the students to prepare for prepping college and scholarship applications, so we cope!

I don't really have an opinion on the impact of the colleges that have specifically worked with Dean and are showing an interest in the Dean's List Students other than I thought it was a great opportunity for the students to get more exposure!

I believe that all of the teams love their Dean's List nominees! I've heard other teams mentors tell me stories about their nominees and everyone of them sounds like they would be an amazing representative of FIRST. I do not envy those who select the Finalists at regionals and I would believe that that the Kamen Family and the other judges have a great challenge each year to select only 10 of the finalists as the Dean's List winners.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

To make that a stated goal seems disingenuous to me. Giving an award to someone to promote yourself? Obviously it has precedence -- Alfred Nobel started the Nobel Prizes to clear his name as the inventor of dynamite, but that doesn't make it right. To me, it changes the message from "Wow! You're pretty great!" to "Wow, you're pretty great and you'll make a fantastic billboard for our program!" Inspiration is not even close to a zero sum game, but sometimes I am not convinced FIRST feels the same way.

I don't think exemplary leadership requires wanting a college education. Many of the key people on my high school FRC team didn't go to college. By the sounds of this, if they don't plan on going to college are they not as highly considered? A fairly significant number of my mentors and friends growing up didn't go to college and are still really great people making a real impact on the world. They can still be community and workplace leaders. College worked out pretty well for me, but I totally get and respect people who don't do college. As a sidenote, I have seen many an engineering college student disrespect a mechanic and promptly get severely shown up. ;)

And to be honest I think one of the problems is that so many people are so concerned about going to a prestigious school. I paid a lot of money to go to one. I got a really good education, made a bunch of great friends, acquired a relatively modest mountain of debt, and when I graduated I got a job that I'm really excited to get up for in the morning. But, I had many friends go to not prestigious schools, and they still got a really good education, a bunch of great friends, and jobs they are also really excited to get up for in the morning.

College isn't a destination -- it's just a stop along the way for some. As long as your school is accredited chances are you can find like minded people and do really cool independent projects that will impress your future employers a heck of a lot more than even the most challenging class you could take at MIT. (Worth noting that MIT kids tend to have awesome independent projects)

I really liked FIRST because we drew upon a wide variety of people. Our technical mentors included a commercial fisherman, a factory manager, a postmaster, a (boat) pilot, a retired engineer who worked rewiring Apollo after the Apollo 1 fire, another retired engineer who built a hydro power plant in a big stream on his property to keep himself entertained, a landscaper, and a long list of others. We had students from honors/AP, and kids who were on the technical track and spent all their time at the vocational school. And we got along great, and we were all a lot better off for it.

To cast that off and focus an award on the college bound is a misstep I think. I would hate to see the Dean's list become just another award kids strive for to look good on college applications (not that this is currently the case). Because the real secret to looking great on college applications is not caring about college applications and just being awesome. As Don says, that is just my opinion.

As a sidenote, I think Barry's situation is an interesting brainteaser, but extremely unlikely to actually happen. In the real world I do not think you will ever have a case where 6 students are exactly matched in terms of everything except where they want to go to school. In my mind, if their leadership qualities and experiences are exactly matched then they all deserve the award an equal amount, regardless of what they want to do in the future. It'd be a pretty crowded stage.

I am sure some of you will disagree with me, looking forward to the discourse. :)

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I would just like to remind those who are forming new improvements to follow the KISS method. My personal opinion is that there is too much overthinking going into this discussion.

I, personally, don't care if a Junior is not nominated. I also don't care what the future of the nominee holds for the nominee at the time we are making the nomination. I care about the value of the contributions the student has made to the team, helping to build and strengthen the FIRST program and STEM initiatives in the local community and potentially impacting the regional, national, and global communities as well. (The Dean's List is recognized at the Championship level which is not the National level. The Championship level recognizes the candidates that qualify from around the world. A National level would recognize only the candidates from the nation.)

By not caring about the graduating class a nominee is in or what happens after high school graduation, I mean - I'm not going to weigh and measure the nominee's value by the school he or she applies to or the choices he or she makes after high school. That is not going to play into my part of helping to honor the inspirational work and contributions of a student.

When you start moving beyond that and into college selection possibilities, you begin dabbling in politics. That is not what I think the Dean's List Award is about or should be about.

Jane

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I think that in order to talk about the "right" way to award the Dean's List, we first need to talk about the meta-issue of how ALL judged awards are handled.

We all know that FIRST is not fair. There are teams with "unlimited" budgets, dozens of world class mentors, fantastic production resources, and affluent "cream of the crop", MIT-bound (with or without FRC) students. And there are teams that struggle to register for their first event, rely on the kitbot and hand tools, have one or two dedicated mentors, and draw from some of the most challenged schools in the country. Most teams fit somewhere in between. In general, a student has little or no choice as to what team they join. It is something they are "born into".

Nobody can argue that the "have" teams can achieve objectively "bigger" things than those who "have not"...they have greater resources! They can build awesome robots each and every year, and have bandwidth for doing more community outreach at the same time. Most (but not all) Einstein teams each year come from some of the most affluent areas in FIRST. Most (but not all) Hall of Fame teams fall on the favorable side of the resource distribution curve. It is no surprise that many (but by no means all) judged awards go to a small subset of the FRC teams each season.

Of course, the counter-point is that if all of your students are already bound for prestigious colleges and successful careers, then what real impact are you making? FIRST certainly offers plenty to these students (leadership and teamwork experience, early exposure to engineering practices, and resume padding to help get into highly competitive schools), but can you really argue that it is as profound and life-changing as taking someone from a less affluent background, with little in the way of a support system and a less ambitious outlook on life, and turning them into someone who is motivated, knowledgeable, and going to be the first college-bound person in their family (for example)?

The question becomes...do you reward objective excellence in (robot design and execution, team organization, community outreach, etc.)...or do you reward huge, significant impact in the lives of students (even if the robot, organization, community outreach, etc., isn't as impressive on paper)? If "both", how do you strike a balance?

The answer, for me, to this meta-question as well as to the "Who should get a Dean's List" question is a simple measuring stick: "[Our vision is] To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders." (Dean Kamen)

Changing a culture is a tricky thing. It is very, very hard to do in a targeted way. Culture is a bit of a nebulous (but fascinating) concept, but at some level it means specific "schemas" or patterns and structures of thinking about specific aspects of our world shared by a particular demographic. Culture gets reinforced and evolves over time as a result of many factors, but two of the most significant are:

(1) "Internal" experiences (experiences with <aspect of the world> at the individual, family, neighbor, daily experience level)
(2) "External" experiences (experience with <aspect of the world> at the TV, internet, public policy, arts and entertainment level)

You need to make significant impacts in BOTH areas to have ANY chance of affecting real cultural change! How fortunate that "grassroots" teams cater more to the first factor, and influential, resource-rich teams contribute more to the second! (Though this is a HUGE over simplification, and both types of teams can make significant impacts in both areas)

So in the end, my answer to the question is a bit of a cop out. There are still very hard decisions that I am sure the judges (for any award, including Dean's List) need to make that require choosing between different types of deserving teams/individuals, and I cannot come up with a hard and fast rule to help them out.

But at the end of the day, all FIRST awards are most visible to us within the FIRST community. Outsiders do not (yet) really care. Even college admissions departments are unlikely to truly understand the "pecking order" of FRC awards. So really, awards are FIRST's most visible way of saying to all of us: "Yes, this is a team/individual to emulate!", and I am saying that the "metric" (however fuzzy it may be) that should, in my opinion, weigh most heavily in this determinition is "How much cultural change is this person/team really affecting?"

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Super post, Jared.

I want to talk about your last comment which included: "How much cultural change is this person/team really affecting?"

That could be as simple as changing the culture of the team. Sometimes, the contributions and attitude of a team member can go a very long way towards changing the culture of a team. In doing so, the team is strengthened in ways it could not have been and can venture into other opportunities that involve making deeper cuts into the swath of cultural changes.

It has been my understanding through the years, that members of the FIRST community felt that an award for students was needed and that it would be inspired by the Woodie Flowers Award that is awarded to worthy mentors who are nominated and selected. The mentors who have garnered the award at the finalist level - have earned the judges' respect, attention, and decisions. When we read the essays that teams so graciously share with the FIRST community - we find that inspiration is the common thread connecting all of the essays and all of the candidates. It is the same with the Dean's List Award.

When the Dean's List Award was first introduced, we knew that it would take a few seasons for it to come into its own - especially given the way in which it was initially introduced. We knew, at the time, that it had wonderful potential. As a community of thinkers, we need to honor that potential and give it the flexibility and freedom that the Woodie Flowers Award has at District and Regional level. When the WFFAs are nominated for the Championship level, then we see and recognize a different level of potential and impact when the award is decided and the winner is announced. Much like the Chairman's Award contenders at Championship level.

It's a process of elimination led by inspiration.

Jane

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Life isn't fair. This has been beat up pretty hard in other threads.

"have not" teams can become "have" teams. It takes hard work and leadership in the mentors and the students. Too many times students interest is sparked and the adults don't sufficiently mentor the students and help support the team. The team could fail, or just survive. I see this tragedy more times than I can to mention.

The students that can push through those difficulties and exert enough leadership to help navigate the team into calmer financial, technical, and cultural waters are in my opinion excellent candidates for the Dean's List Award ( as a leadership, growth, sustainability award )

I'll just pose a question. Does having a lot of resources result in a 'culturally changing' high performance team ? Not necessarily.

Absolutely. The pecking order of FIRST awards is mostly lost on non-FIRST'ers. And probably to a large degree it may not really matter, maybe......

What we are creating is what is called a "Public Value" argument. The general public just needs to say, FIRST is great, it is needed, it should be supported, etc, "I'm going to support what you do and now I'm going to the mall"...

The student that has the ability to demonstrate technical excellence and translate that into a public value argument that helps promote the growth and development of STEM programs like FIRST is the ideal Dean's List candidate.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

There are a couple things that could be done to greatly improve the Dean's List award.

First and foremost, offer a scholarship to any college to Dean's List finalists. That, of course, is expensive. If there were 114 finalists, and each got 1000 dollars, that's $114,000. Of course, with 2000 teams, that's only $57 more per team.

Another thing to do that isn't quite as expensive: any Dean's List Finalist who comes to the Championship without their team should be given a floor pass bracelet for Einstein. Sitting near the field is a great thing, even if your view is actually worse sometimes.

Finally, the announcement of the Dean's List winners should be done in the main stadium (or, they should be re-announced there). That would make people more aware of the award, thereby increasing the number of teams that submit students for it.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

Hello, my name is Rachel Holladay and I am a 2012 Dean's List Winner (and a junior..). I have been following this thread and have just returned from the Deans List Summit. I would like to offer a humble opinion that represents only my thoughts and not official ones from FIRST HQ.

There's an element to being a Dean's List Winner that I did not realize into this past weekend. Becoming a DL Winner is an absolutely immense honor that also entails taking on quite an ambitious job. You see, when we had our meetings with Dean he laid out that we had been chosen out of all of our peers as leaders within FIRST. Now that we had been selected we had a new level responsibility to the FIRST community and the FIRST vision. To say Dean gave us homework is an understatement, he gave a huge project. Right now I'll be a little vague with what it is, but trust me, you will find out. (Oh gosh, this must be how the GDC feels..) The project would be considerably harder (to borderline nearly impossible) if all the winners had been seniors and therefore were leaving for college for the simple reason that college freshman have a lot on their plate already. Its almost as if the DL Winners were not only chosen to be honored but also chosen to work on an important task force.

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I have to chime in here... the criteria states:
Please reconsider this phrase, as it implies that Dean's List Awardees must have technical expertise - yet many, many of our students and mentors are providing critical expertise to teams in non-technical areas.
I think you can be passionate and promote the FIRST mission regardless of your technical expertise.
Forgive me, Libby, for I didn't know your grandfather and have only met your grandmother once or twice - but the award was created to recognize them - and their wonderful support of FIRST. I know of lots of young students, mentors, alums who do the same in a non-technical role. So why does the criteria emphasize technical expertise?

Re: Improvements to the Dean's List. Your Ideas?
 

I have read all the posts above.
Concerning the Dean's List there seems to be two different perceptions.

1. The Dean's List honors a member of a team who demonstrates outstanding leadership, dedication, and efforts with a team. Should be a junior with technical expertise as this individual may most likely qualify for respective college scholarships and represent FIRST throughout their senior year.

2. The Dean's List honors the most outstanding member of a team who demonstrates leadership, dedication, and above and beyond efforts of team. Regardless of age, this person is the equivalent of a high school team member who reflects the same qualities as the winner of the Woodie Flower's award.

Either way, each of the above has it's merits, advantages and disadvantages. Since this is a Kamen chosen award, as Libby describes, honoring Jack Kamen and Libby's grandmother, the award should be whatever the Kamen family thinks it should be, whatever guidelines they choose and find most fitting.

However, if it is an award specifically given to a junior with technical expertise, I would ask a committee to consider giving another award(s), with the same qualities sought in the Woodie Flowers award, with no age or technical stipulation. I would also like to see a FIRST alumni, recognized in this way. (This might be another thread, "How to honor and outreach to alumni")
These awards would not necessarily come with the same "prizes" as the Dean's List winner, but more recognize this individual(s) for their significant contributions to their respective teams and FIRST, again more consistent with the Woodie Flowers version. Especially important, is to consider that alumni, who Dean mentioned very specifically at the Finalist award ceremony in length, are critical in developing the future of FIRST. However, a dedicated few of the thousands stay involved with the FIRST program after entering college or the workforce. Seniors are almost alumni, and how important a contribution they feel they can make to FIRST in the future, and how the teams feel about them now, will likely fit into their decision to continue as a FIRST volunteer/mentor or participate instead on a larger scale with the many other choices they will be offered as college students or young members of the workplace.

As a mother, one of the greatest joys I have experienced, is watching very young students grow up in the FIRST program, who have become devoted, wonderful adults who now mentor young people in FIRST activities. I am truly in awe and inspired by their commitment to mentor as they have been mentored in the these programs. Not all of these individuals have gone to prestigious colleges or gone into science and engineering, however, they represent some of the best young people I have ever had the privilege to know.
Thank you to the Kamens, and the committees, who are seeking ways to continue to support and encourage these young folks and their involvement in the FIRST programs. Just a Mom's opinion. :)