The spring 2005 recipients of the Brandeis Achievement Award were selected last week by a committee of five administrators and three students.Proposed in the fall semester by Erica Lemansky '05, the former vice president of the Student Union, the Brandeis Achievement Award grants $5,000 of scholarship money per semester to students who, according to Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences Elaine Wong, had two or more of the following qualities- "outstanding essays about their contributions to Brandeis, outstanding contributions in more than one area of campus life, outstanding academic achievement."

According to Wong, who served on the review committee, strong recommendation letters from faculty or staff were also required to receive recognition.

Peter Giumette of the Financial Aid Office coordinated the review committee as well as the selection process and sent all the applicants' letters sometime around May 10.

According to Giumette, the money for the award comes from the University's general scholarship fund, which is a combination of income from endowed scholarships and the University's revenue.

"Every award from Brandeis is given from the general scholarship fund," Giumette said. "We have a general budget line that the Board of Trustees produced for us that includes revenues from all these endowed scholarships."

Because the award is in its first year, both Giumette and Wong predict that its selection process will experience several changes next year.

"This year was problematic because we rolled it out very late into the spring semester and then we had to do the whole process again later in the spring semester," Giumette said.

Wong said that other small changes, including an earlier deadline, would be considered.

Giumette said that in addition to the lack of publicity the application receives, another problem is that the selection committee needs to find new student members because, with the exception of Jacob Kim '06, all students on it this past year have graduated.

"I would welcome any opportunity or any advice students have in terms of advertising because it takes a lot of work to put it out and not many people may know about it," Giumette said. "We also need to begin assembling the student committee for next year."



Achievement Award Recipients





William Chalmus '07

Theater Arts



Jonathan Cohen '06

History



Jennifer El-Far '07

Theater Arts



Aaron Gaynor '07

Economics



Tien Hoang '07

Computer Science



Ava Morgenstern '06

Sociology



Carol Ortenberg '06

Theater Arts



Don Phillips '06

Politics



Omer Rosenhand '06

Economics



Erica Weston '07

Health, Science, Society and Policy