FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

I'm hearing a lot about getting around the system in order for the mentors to submit an essay or two that highlights the character of a student, hoping to garner a prestigious award that Dean Kamen has created to honor his parents. There's something very wrong. Especially when the team getting around the system is a HoF team.

With the way that it was set up this year, we took a collaborative approach, involving the students that had been selected by our team, in the process. Because of the different constraints involved, we approached the situation as best we could while continuing to maintain a semblance of order and integrity. When mentors from other teams contacted me seeking advice, I advised against doing anything to get around the system.

For this award, is it really that important that only mentors write and submit for the student(s) being honored? Or - is it valuable to include the student(s) and their team (and community) in which they are such a big part of and from where the inspiration has come? I can understand that mentors are asked to write college recommendations year after year, and we all take that very seriously and adhere to the privacy aspect of that. This is a little different. At least this year. One of our sub-team awards members e-mailed the essay submissions to the team yesterday. I printed them out and will frame them and place them where I can see them every day. Are they perfect? No. Could we have used a lot more time than we had. Absolutely. Am I proud as can be? Yes. Am I still frustrated? No. The students' tenacity and perseverance calmed me way down. They're good like that.

Jane

We barely had the time for the mentors to work on it, let alone to form a committee of students to get this done. We had two options here. The mentors write the submission and hope the kids can get it in on time, or the mentors write the submission and slightly circumvent the system (which is completely broken) to ensure that our students have the chance to be recognized. It was a no brainer to us.

I agree with everything that David has said. As mentors we know our students a LOT better than the students do. I also feel that the team does not need to know what we wrote about the students we submitted for.

The point here was to recognize an outstanding student (or two) on your team. We did our absolute best to make that happen, which is what any team should have done. I see absolutely no reason why that is "very wrong"