FRC Blogged - Something New – FIRST Dean’s List Changes

FIRST General Forum
#52

Because(and especially with the interview component) that just becomes too much. Also it makes them basically the same thing. It would be a confusion for “casuals” in that to “random person discovering a FIRST competition” they see two awards with arbitrary differences and could easily think, “oh so which one’s better?” The complexity this would add is unnecessary (much in the sense that at some competitions, the major robot awards could, in theory, be interchangeable).

I view the “major awards” of FIRST(ie. those that recognize the ideals of FIRST) in this way:
Chairman’s-Teams
Woodie Flowers-Mentors
DL-Students.

They can’t give a separate award that would be defined as JUST for college recognition. That’s what scholarships are for.

#53

Steven, I think the point is more that FIRST has two definitions of what the purpose of Dean’s List is-- it’s to recognize students that exemplify FIRST’s ideals, but it’s also to help deserving FIRST students get a leg up in college admissions and financial aid.

The problem that I think is causing the most problems is the specific edge case of this transition year-- that there are some seniors that due to team tradition or other circumstances were not applied for last year, who now can never have the opportunity to be a Dean’s List finalist or winner. Sure there’s some problems with just the principle of limiting Dean’s List to just sophomores and juniors, but it would have been much easier to stomach if some of this year’s seniors weren’t left out in the cold. The transition could have been smoother, but I think ultimately the change will end up for the better.

#54

I’m conflicted on the Junior/Sophomore change. I totally am on board in terms of helping the students get into colleges, but I have personally have trouble nominating a student I have only seen in their first two years of high school, during which students typically haven’t reached the level of maturity I like to see in Dean’s List Winners. Naturally, there are plenty of exceptions.

The quotes I selected above are representative of my primary complaint- FIRST very heavily emphasizes inspiration and recognition. To me, this change eliminates the chance to recognize both one generation of students (short term) and students who don’t truly begin to shine until they are seniors for any of a number of reasons.

I also would hope that many of the same characteristics that define our Dean’s List winners would show on their college applications as well, whether or not the students have the title to reinforce their claims. I know it doesn’t always work that way, but that’s my ideal world.

As a senior Dean’s List finalist in 2010, I know first-hand that the award comes too late for some colleges. Others you can slip in it just before the deadline. I do not feel like I got burned. I am incredibly proud to be a Dean’s List finalist, and am appreciative of the recognition, even though it did not help me get into any colleges.

#55

I don’t like this at all. Just because a student won’t have the opportunity to put it on a college application, don’t disallow them from winning. Is that all Dean’s list means to FIRST? Something that you can put on an application? Jeesh.

Also, I disagree with interviewing. It really doesn’t let students on drive teams even be eligible. Just like how we don’t have drive team members on Chairman’s award teams. Drive team members are most often the leaders of the teams…the ones deserving the Dean’s list award. They don’t have time to leave for an interview.

#56

This is definitely not the case on some teams. On smaller teams, yes, often the drive team are the team leaders, but on large teams they aren’t always the leaders. Also, the blog states that interviews go less than 5 minutes. As someone who was on drive team for 3 years, I definitely can say that at every competition I’ve been to I would have had 5 minutes to spare, especially for something like this…

#57

I’m going to toss my two cents in here…bare in mind that I graduated HS in 2011, before the Dean’s list was even an award (I’m pretty sure anyways):

Interviews: good idea. The community has hit the dead horse enough on this. An interview does a much better job of allowing the judges to see the true qualities of a person. It is easy enough for someone to seem enthusiastic on paper but be apathetic when it comes to the interview. This situation is now mitigated. Good job here.

Now, the limitation to ‘not-seniors’ is interesting. To me, the biggest satisfaction I got from FRC was seeing 2 students take a team that had basically disbanded, and rebuild a bigger, stronger, deeper team with more school support than I could have ever imagined. Do I think that I influenced them? I like to think so. Additionally, the award 2421 in 2010 at DC (Engineering Excellence) is a huge climax in my FRC memory. I smile whenever I walk into my room and see that trophy sitting on the shelf.
Is it right to recognize the students that contribute greatly to the FRC community? ABSOLUTELY.
However, I feel that this whole award is missing the point: often times, the greatest students are not the ones that do the most work or recruit the most students or fund raise the most, but the student who, singlehandedly, motivates and drives the entire team. The award, in my opinion, does not tend to recognize this student, even though they are, IMO the critical link in the team. If a student were to really take charge, take ownership, and drive the rest of team to do the same, then I would want to recognize them on the team level first, making sure that people knew what this student did to make the TEAM successful…

Now, back to my thermo assignment…

#58

The Dean’s List was started during the 2010 FRC season.

#59

Does anyone have the stats for the DL?
Looking for the year, number of finalist, finalist grades, winners, and winner’s grade.

#60

PM me; we’ve been collecting stats on finalists and winners.

#61

To all the students who are upset about the Seniors change - go off and prove FIRST wrong then in this one. Show why you are even stronger candidates for this award, and DONT do it for the award. Probably not much more than 200 alumni (out of how many THOUSANDS of students?!?) have gone on to make a significant difference in FIRST after their senior year, and not a single one of them EVER did it for an award - because there wasn’t one. Many of them did it before there were even scholarships to the colleges they wanted to attend. Be leaders on your teams, help your teams win the Chairmans Awards, and Engineering Inspiration Awards and represent them to Judges, younger students, FLL kids, and people everywhere to show them what FIRST gave you and use THAT as your motivation, not some silly piece of paper that you were going to shove behind the pile of awards you already have (or already wish you had). Just like there are MANY MANY amazing mentors out there who may never get recognized as Woodie Flowers Award Winners, there are many many students out there who will never and never even got the chance to be recognized as Deans List Award winners. It doesnt make those mentors or students any less important to FIRST and it doesnt make them any less important to teams. If your team doesnt already have a way of recognizing its seniors, then its missing an opportunity to thank kids for all the hard work and dedication… but in my opinion, that is not FIRST’s job.

So for a minute… lets peel back the onion and look at the reality of the situation. FIRST has been hurting for years to find a really really good process for tracking its alumni and for making sure they go on to do bigger and better things that prove FIRST has had an impact and is making a real difference. Many of us know in our hearts this is true, but they need the stats to back it up. Now, jump back to the Deans List Award - they wanted to select the best of the best students to help be role models for other students and provide much needed student input into some of the changes FIRST wants to implement. FIRST also wants students who are going to CONTINUE to spread the word of FIRST, and as 99% of all FIRST alumni will tell you, its smart to “take a year off”… that translates into a very tough sell for FIRST to get previous students back into the program, back showing people what a success FIRST was. And how many of them disappear into the wind? Some of my past teams “best of the best” students are no longer much involved in FIRST… sure they may come back to volunteer at an event one year, or they may stop by and say hi to the current team… but they are no longer “selling” FIRST to the masses. IMO FIRST wants to hook kids that are still involved in the program and who they can utilize for another year or two to help build a strong base of student leaders who will help track other alums and promote the program. Look at the explosion of the Facebook groups, chat rooms and former Deans List nominees and winners who now keep in touch, and are their own community. If FIRST can really tap into that potential, it has a HUGE marketing ability. And in the end, all corporations - profit or non-profit, need to justify their product and provide statistics to back it up. So while, yes, it is nice to recognize students for all their hard work, the reality of it is that FIRST needs a way to tap into student leaders to further its mission. And this is it.

And for all those of you who are Alumni and are still around, be honest, how much more inspired were you your senior year? I was on my HS team for 3 years. ALL 3 years I won the team’s MVP award (which wasn’t specific to year - and the only HS award I display to this day is my sophomore year one), but honestly, in my senior year - I was no more effective or inspired than I was in my junior year. I had senioritis, and I was working on getting into colleges. I skipped a few morning CAD classes to go out to breakfast, and I skipped a week to go skiing in Colorado. While that didn’t stop me from contributing to a great robot, nor from becoming our team’s first student coach, or from many other things I accomplished that year… winning some award my senior or junior year would not have made a difference in who I was or how much FIRST meant to me. I didn’t need FIRST to tell me I was going to go on to do great things, I was determined by myself to do so, and to prove to everyone what I had gotten out of it.

Over my many years in FIRST I have gotten to know tons of amazing students, and in these last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a lot more from different teams. I would sincerely hope that each of them, while perhaps disappointed in the lack of opportunity to get to go up to FIRST for the DL summit, doesn’t change their mind about FIRST or how inspired they are because they can no longer receive a certificate that validates their accomplishments. True leaders don’t require recognition to do a great job. They do it for the satisfaction of the result of their successful leadership. And they don’t need credit for it.

And for the mentors who are disappointed, find OTHER ways of recognizing your amazing seniors. Your team can do it on your own. And honestly, I feel the writing was on the wall, they’ve been encouraging this for a while. If you feel disappointed you “messed up” for your current seniors by not nominating them last year, then do something else special for them - or better yet, help them realize they don’t need FIRST’s signature to know that they are important to the future.

#62

“Me too”… the interview sounds like a great idea, the “no-seniors” thing, not so much. While I don’t entirely grasp why FIRST feels that Dean’s List winners need the award to help get into university (Really, are there Dean’s List winners who wouldn’t qualify for a great university without the award? REALLY?) I’ll also accept that they get to make the rules.

Here’s some ideas that could make things interesting:

  1. The regional Dean’s List award winners are chosen as Grade 10/11 students. This makes them elegible to win a *Championship *Dean’s List award as a Grade 12 student. The Championship Dean’s List winner is chosen based on what the student did *after *winning their regional Dean’s List.

  2. As a teacher leading a team, I always wanted to celebrate the contributions of our Grade 12 students. Some of them had made a four or five year committment to the team and deserved to be recognized in their final year. We know that FIRST responds very well to financial incentives… so perhaps a Kickstarter type campaign to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars to sponsor an award for Seniors only. It might not be as exclusive as the Dean’s List… maybe it is just a special medal and each team gets to select one recipient who receives the medal at their final FRC event. Donors to the campaign could negotiate with FIRST on how they would like outstanding seniors to be recognized.

Jason

#63

I guess perspective in this change is important. FRC existed for 18 years under many different hats before this award was even added to the stable. As most here can attest, that doesn’t mean there weren’t any “Dean’s List”-quality students for that period of time, whatever you define that to be. There are a number of alumni on here who graduated before this award ever came into existence, so obviously something else has brought you back.

I’m not a fan of the change only because it seems very urgent and reactive, unlike all the other changes that have taken place over the last year. Teams who traditionally nominate seniors for this award (if a 4-year practice is a “tradition”) and teams who live in areas where the criteria doesn’t match their college application process are damaged by this by not being given time to adjust. Were this to come about in 2015, I think I would understand it more.

In 2012, my team moved from nominating the graduating class for the award to nominating those in the junior class. As far as the student leadership was concerned, we didn’t really care because when we weren’t plugging away at the robot, we were identifying the future student leadership and transitioning. After we bagged the robot, seniors lead the events and then we were pretty much done, acting in advisory roles and polishing up our high school careers.

I understand it’s different for all teams, but I think making this limit shifts the award’s intent to something that works to recognize students and teams to something that works to recognize AND serve the mission of the student, team, and FIRST. FIRST wasn’t getting much out of this award from seniors. A Dean’s List finalist who is a junior can now take charge of programs and initiatives throughout the entire region in their senior year, as I know a few are. That serves the student, team, and FIRST.

There are plenty of ways to recognize your students and mentors. I know we always did at the end of every season. This award was the only award that stood the chance of not helping to further the mission of FIRST–teams keep team awards on their resume, WF(F)A winners stay on their teams and with FIRST forever, but DL(F)A’s didn’t come with that guarantee. With this move, they just might.

#64

I am very disappointed in these changes. Deserving students are deserving students. Period. Also, the interview might well be disruptive to the busy Deans list nominees (they are exemplary students, so they will probably be busy at the competition).

#65

I’m sorry, but some of these arguments justifying the change in eligibility don’t hold water, in my opinion.

Paraphrasing what several of you have said, “Seniors who win the award aren’t going to do anything for FIRST. Juniors are going to stay involved forever.” This argument is ridiculous. What’s to say the Juniors don’t just quit FIRST after they graduate? Why would a senior who has invested enough in the program to justify winning a Dean’s List award just abandon FIRST more than any other student? Why don’t we nominate only Freshmen for Dean’s List, because then we can get 3 whole years of leadership out of them before they abandon FIRST when they graduate?

Tracking alumni? I heard Dean charge the Dean’s List winners with this at CMP. Are you saying that Seniors are worthless in keeping track of their peers, but Juniors will be awesome at it?

Giving the Dean’s List award to seniors doesn’t further the mission of FIRST?!? If recognizing and celebrating an individual or group who embodies the ideals of FIRST can’t be seen as furthering the mission of FIRST, maybe we should do away with Woodie Flowers, Chairman’s, and FIRST Founders Award. You get what you celebrate.

As much as I disagree with the change, at least the argument from FIRST about helping with college applications has some merit – though there are many detractors on this justification as well, mostly from outside the US.

#66

It is a ridiculous argument, and, I understand you’re paraphrasing, but I haven’t seen anyone say/imply that in such an extreme way.

The argument is that seniors who win DL are less likely to have a direct impact on inspiring/being a symbol/influence on their specific program(ie. team, region). Juniors are much more likely to have this influence. Junior DL’s are much more likely to DIRECTLY be involved the same ways they were as they enter their senior years.

Example: A junior becomes a Dean’s List finalist. Now, in their senior year, they can continue being 100% involved with their team as a student. Now, freshman entering the team can see this student as a symbol/influence throughout their FIRST career.

On the flipside, a senior DLF either is not there in their “home region”/on their “home team” and everything a new freshman hears about them is secondhand, unless they immediately come back to mentor(which is an argument/discussion for a different thread).

Essentially, what I’m trying to say is, freshman/those new to FIRST can easily be much more receptive to a DL finalist who is still a student-it presents a goal that is realistic to someone with no idea what FIRST is like. It’s a much clearer, more realistic goal in saying, “I wanna be just like that senior!” as opposed to imagining them trying to think, “I guess maybe I can be just like that new mentor who was on the team last year…”*

Basically, aside from the college admissions argument, FIRST seems to want there to be firsthand, recognized major influences still being students in the program.

*yes, this paragraph is jumbled, but I hope it got my point across

#67

I won’t repeat what many have already said, so in the words of Inigo Montoya, “I will 'splain. No. There is too much, I will sum up.”

  1. Interviews: YES. I feel that giving judges face-to-face time with the students is worth whatever logistical complications it may add. Sure, these particular students will probably be busy, but they can spare 10 minutes for an interview.

  2. Sophomore/Junior restrictions: I’m probably bias, as I am a senior this year, but I’ll try to be un-bias). I feel the same as many others have said. Why completely eliminate them from the running? Many seniors deserve recognition. At the very least, give an advance notice of a year for those teams who traditionally nominate seniors.

#68

A lot of seniors who graduate from high school, and consequently from student-hood of FRC, tend to go off to colleges to earn the higher education the program is designed to inspire them to pursue. A lot of juniors in the program tend to stay in high school for another year before they graduate and go off to college. Teams often have a habit of crafting legends of notable alumni, but may have limited future interaction with the former participant. Witnessing the clout a person and team can earn firsthand from earning a DLFA and watching it immediately turn into positive energy for the student, the team, and FIRST, I support the change. I don’t have to fall into a trap of slippery-slope logic to think otherwise.

Dean has charged all students and teams with tracking alumni, and the success hasn’t really come out in spades. Now, say you have a Dean’s List winner that is an active student working with active alumni and parents to craft such a tracking system, it could (and does) prove to be effective in some cases.

You’re right in saying that we get what we celebrate. Every student who puts their heart and mind into this program is rewarded, as is every mentor, volunteer, judge, and executive, and they are all celebrated at every FIRST event.

Speaking pragmatically, we need more than celebration. We need blue chips. We need students and teams now more than ever to go out and make this program more accessible financially, more successful in team quality, bigger and brighter in scope–the program has grown its wings and has stood at the edge of a steep cliff for some time, inching ever closer to the drop. Whether FIRST falls or flies over the next decade depends on a lot of things, but not squeezing every ounce of potential out of your brightest stars is a disservice to everyone in the program, especially said “stars”.

The other awards you mentioned of doing away with: Founder’s Award, Woodie Flowers Award, Chairman’s Award… how many sponsors, mentors, and teams have dropped off the face of the FIRST world? Next to zero. They continue to push ahead. How many Dean’s List Finalists and winners have been lost in the wind?

#69

I’ve seen kids win DL who haven’t done much after graduating, and I know plenty who didn’t win who do a lot for FIRST and don’t need the validation.

My concern is actually regarding kids and parents who might be mislead about how big of an impact something as small as being a Dean’s List winner can be in the college admissions process. We all saw an example of this a few months back (if you want the link for that thread, PM me. I don’t want to put anyone on the spot here).

I hope FIRST is very clear to kids and their parents about how much (or little) of an impact this can make for admissions at colleges. Also, working towards a Dean’s List award should not be the motivation for hard work and dedication to this community, but I fear we would see more of it with this kind of emphasis being put on this award.

+$0.02

Additionally, I actually want some clarification from Frank about what kind of criteria the winners of Dean’s List meet. What do the judges think sets these kids apart from the rest? How do you keep track of their involvement in FIRST after they graduate? What do you do with the winners who don’t stay involved in FIRST after graduation? I like the interview idea because it will bring forward more kids who truly are dedicated to FIRST and STEM and don’t do it for an award. I just hope interviews won’t interfere with their involvement in various parts of a team during competitions.

One more thing - are all the Dean’s List essays available to read somewhere? I would like to check them out.

#70

*(Edited)
*
Update! Change [strike]reverted[/strike] (as Chris pointed out below, better described as “compromised”)! http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=119608

#71

Change not reverted - Change delayed one year. There’s still plenty to debate about. :slight_smile:

And on that note: How would you feel if we changed the Woodie Flowers Finalist award so that only college juniors, college seniors, and the unemployed were eligible? I mean, the WFFA could really help them get a job, so why would we want to give the award to people who are already employed? How would they benefit?

Clearly ridiculous, I know, but I’m having trouble coming up with an argument against that proposal that doesn’t also apply to the Dean’s List Finalist award.