Annual Report 2021-2022

Ewa Stelmach (Mathematics & Computer Science) (2023)

Wei Lai (Foreign Languages) (2022)

Alfred McDonald (Business) (2022)

Benjamin Miller (English) (2023)

Stephen Atkins (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs) (2024)

Ari Fulton (Speech Communications) (2024)

President’s Designee: Veronica Lukas (Executive Director of Student Financial Services)

Steering Committee Designee: Mark Zelcer, Social Sciences

Timothy Keogh (Chemistry) (2025)

Ari Fulton (Speech Communications) (2024)

Ewa Stelmach (Mathematics & Computer Science) (2023)

Benjamin Miller (English) (2023)

Stephen Atkins (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs) (2024)

Ryan Brannan (Academy Advisement) (2025)

Chairperson: Ewa Stelmach (Mathematics & Computer Science) (2023)

Secretary: Wei Lai (Foreign Languages) (2022)

Chairperson: Timothy Keogh (Chemistry) (2025)

Secretary: Ari Fulton (Speech Communications) (2024)

1. Evaluate and recommend to the Academic Senate criteria and selection procedures for recipients of awards and scholarships. Completed

2. Select and recommend to the Academic Senate recipients for College-wide awards and scholarships for all currently enrolled students and mid-year graduates. Completed

3. Assist the Office of Financial Services and Scholarships in awarding the College-wide scholarships. Completed
   

4. Receive data on all awards and scholarships granted in the College and report the data to the Academic Senate. Completed

Accomplished Items: The committee reviewed a total of 413 applications/nominations. This includes 61 Continuing Academic Merit Scholarships and 110 Barbara and Harry Sperber Scholarships reviewed in May for the Fall 2022 semester. This academic year the committee reviewed three new scholarships.

A. Special Awards: 7 recipients chosen out of 34 applicants

1. *John F. Kennedy Memorial Award ($500) – given to Ellen Tsz-Wa Chu (out of 13 nominees), graduating students who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in the college and the community.
2. *Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award ($500) – given to Kalu Tyrone (out of 11 applicants), graduating students who has demonstrated exceptional leadership in promoting racial harmony and appreciation of cultural diversity.
3. *Ray Ricketts Memorial Award ($250) - given to Khari Ojeda-Harvey (out of five applicants), returning student (left college at one point) who exhibits exceptional scholarship and leadership.
4. *Incentive Awards - Day and Evening ($250 per person) – given to the day and evening students:

Day: Olga Abayeva (the only applicant)

Evening: Chalsian Wright-Marston and Espinosa Perla (out of four applicants)

who have demonstrated outstanding academic performance and are working parents.

* The president’s office handles the JFK and MLK awards- the recipients’ names are printed in the commencement book and they are mailed a check, a certificate, and a letter. The president’s liaison on the committee, Veronica Lukas, sends the information to the president’s office.

Student Affairs handles the Ray Rickett’s award while Student Government handles the Day and Evening Incentive awards. The recipients’ names are printed in the commencement book, and they are mailed a check, certificate, and letter. Veronica Lukas sends the information to the VP for Student Affairs office.

B. Continuing Student Academic Merit Scholarship

This scholarship is given to current and continuing students who have demonstrated outstanding academic performance (a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.25 required). In the Fall 2021 semester awards of $1,000 each were given to 51 new and continuing students, and one award in the amount of $500. The committee reviewed 113 applications from continuing students (37 recommended, 67 pending, 9 rejected). The applications of the qualifying incoming Freshmen are not reviewed by the committee. In the Spring 2022 semester awards of $1,000 each were given to 60 students (new applicants as well as Fall 2021 applicants qualifying for continued funding in the Spring 2022), and two awards in the amount of $500. The committee reviewed 88 applications for the Spring 2022 Merit Scholarship (45 recommended, 33 pending, 10 rejected).

Merit Scholarships Awarded for 2021-2022

C. New Awards

1. Sarah Papier ($129)- given to Aline Lino (out of four applicants), a currently enrolled, matriculated ESL student who has completed 30 credits with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 who has overcome hardship in order to attend college and demonstrate involvement/concern about women's issues
2. Jackson & Muriel Lum ($2195.50 per person)- given Leslyn Hodgson and Maria Acosta Martinez (out of 3 applicants), given to a full-time students enrolled in a program in ET department who demonstrate financial need and have a minimum GPA of 3.0.
3. Barbara and Harry Sperber Scholarship ($500) - (given to 25 students out of 110 applicant), awarded to students based on their financial need.

Number of applicants received for each award during 2012-2022

Number of recipients for each award during 2012-2022

*Includes applications marked “pending” by the committee.

See Appendix 1 for data on all Awards and Scholarships offered by the college during 2021-2022

Accomplishments

1. The committee reviewed 201 Continuing Academic Merit Scholarship applications, compared with 244 reviewed in the previous year. We had 114 students receive a merit scholarship, down from 151 students in the previous year.
2. The committee reviewed 3 new scholarships.

• Sarah Papier Scholarship.

Evaluation Criteria: a currently enrolled, matriculated ESL student who has completed 30 credits with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 who has overcome hardship in order to attend college and demonstrate involvement/concern about women's issues.

Students are nominated by their professors. The students’ recommendation letter along with the above stated criteria are used to select the winners. 

• Jackson & Muriel Lum Endowment Award

Evaluation Criteria: given to full-time students enrolled in a program in ET department who demonstrate financial need and have a minimum GPA of 3.0.

ET department selects the candidates who satisfy the above criteria and forwards the list to the ASC committee. The ASC then reviews the selected candidates’ essays, qualifications and makes final recommendation of the winners for the award.

• Barbara and Harry Sperber Scholarship

Evaluation Criteria: given to part-time students based on their financial need, well-written essay describing themselves and how the scholarship will support their studies at QCC.

Committee reviews students’ qualification and essays, and by majority vote selects the winners for the award. Due to a large number of applicants, 12 students, out of the 110 applicants, who were not selected for B&H Sperber, were nominated for QCC Merit.

3. The list of final recipients of the special and departmental awards was received in digital format by the chair on August 3^rd from Charles Petz, Database Manager, Office of Institutional Advancement.
4. The committee is again able to report on all of the awards and scholarships offered by the college and their dollar amounts (see Appendix 1). The data was obtained from Charles Petz.
5. On October 13^th, 2021, and March 16^th, 2022, Ewa Stelmach and Wei Lai attended the meeting of the Chairs and Secretaries hosted by the Academic Senate Steering Committee.
6. The chair posted all current committee’s documents on the college website.
7. The committee completed the addendum to the General Guide for All Standing Committees for ASC.

The Chairperson prepared the draft of the addendum to the General Committee Guide for ASC and during the meeting committee discussed it and made revisions. The final copy was prepared by the chair and posted on the committees’ website.

8. The committee revised its Bylaws.

After reviewing the Bylaws for ASC, the committee realized that the wording of the bylaws does not quite represent what the committee does, and thus, the changes to rewrite the Bylaws were proposed. The chair contacted the Bylaws Committee with proposed changes to the Bylaws of ASC. The new charges were approved by the Bylaws Committee and then by the Academic Senate. The chair posted new Bylaws on the committees’ website.  

9. Due to further dissatisfaction with received essays from QCC Merit Scholarship applicants, the committee further revised the essay description.

Also, the sample essay was created and posted under the QCC Merit scholarship description for the Spring 2022 advertisement of the scholarship. See Appendix 2 for the details.

10. During the December and May meetings Veronica Lukas shared files with the committee on the rolling basis through Microsoft Teams. Digital organization of committee documents allows the committee members to have immediate access to the files and more time to evaluate the scholarships.

Appendix 1:

All Awards and Scholarships offered by the college during 2021-2022: Presidential and departmental Awards*

*Data obtained from QCC’s Office of Institutional Advancement (Charles Petz, Database Manager)

Appendix 2. Essay Description for Continuing Academic Merit scholarship and Sample Essay.

Essay Description:

Please submit a well-written formal essay describing yourself, your career goals and inform the Awards and Scholarship Committee about how this scholarship will help you continue your studies at QCC.

Applicants with poorly written essay will be rejected. The QCC Writing Center is available for assistance with essay preparation.

Sample Essay:

Your name and address 

John Smith 

4336 Park PL

Brooklyn, NY 11213

The recipient name and address 

Awards and Scholarship Committee 

Queensborough Community College 

222-05 56th Avenue 

Bayside, NY 11364

To Selection Committee, 

My name is John Smith and I am a second semester student, majoring in Theater Arts, at Queensborough Community College. My high academic standing, service to the community, and theatrical accomplishments make me the ideal candidate to receive this award. I am writing this letter to express my interest in receiving the Academic Merit Scholarship for Spring 2022. This award will eliminate financial hardship and will be important to my future academic success.

I currently volunteer as an afterschool tutor at The School for Success, the middle school I attended, and I serve as a mentor to young men from my community church. In addition, I am a member of the ABC Theatre company where we create, develop and present local theatrical productions. This experience has not only provided insight into what it takes to put on a theatrical production from the front of the stage, but also from the backstage. It too has allowed me to visualize what my future could look like. Looking forward, I see my future is bright, and this award will allow me to pursue my goals and dreams.

I aspire to be an actor. Unfortunately, at this time of my college career, my family is experiencing financial hardship. The scholarship will be very useful because it will allow me to continue my study in theater arts without the financial problems that would have prevented me from continuing at Queensborough. Please be assured, I will not disappoint the Awards and Scholarship Committee and the decision to award me the scholarship.

Sincerely,

John Smith

1. Students’ applications should continue to be available on the rolling basis to the committee members as this gives extra time to evaluate scholarships.
2. Getting all members of the committee to attend meetings and submit their voting results in a timely matter. The incomplete essay evaluations by faculty before the committee meetings are holding up the committee final decisions.
3. Dates for advertising or soliciting applications and recommendations for awards and scholarships:

• The Spring 2023 Continuing Student Academic Merit Scholarships need to be advertised early in the Fall 2022 semester. Ideally, the committee should meet in December 2021 to vote on these.
• The Fall 2023 Continuing Academic Merit Scholarships and Special Awards need to be advertised in April 2023. Ideally, the committee should meet in May 2023 to vote on both of these.

Thank you to all members for their time and commitment to the work of the committee. It’s been an honor to serve as Chair of the Awards and Scholarship Committee, 2019-2022. I am proud of what we have accomplished through the years, the students we have helped, and in particular the last academic year.

Wei Lai served as a secretary of the committee. She has attended all the meetings of the committee and always paid attention to detail and was attentive during the meeting in the scholarship evaluations. She always submitted her scholarship evaluations on time.

Benjamin Miller has attended all of the meetings since he has joined the committee. Ben continues to be the key contributor in evaluating and discussing essays and students’ applications. He always submitted his evaluations on time.

Four committee members, Stephen Atkins, Ari Fulton, Alfred McDonald and Benjamin Miller, wrote a sample essay for student use which was included in the Spring 2022 scholarship announcement for QCC Merit scholarship. The committee agreed that the sample essay had a positive outcome on the quality of the essays received from students.

Alfred McDonald attended all meeting this past academic year and has submitted all of this voting sheets before the meetings. Alfred communicated his questions and concerns to the chair well in advance of the meetings, which allowed him to be well prepared for the meetings. Alfred provided good feedback and was an active participant in the evaluation of scholarships.

Ari Fulton did not attend one of the meetings held by the committee when we worked on the addendum and talked about essay description revisions but she was glad to be part of the team writing the sample essay for QCC Merit. During the meeting discussions, Ari offered great input and feedback regarding the applications evaluation.

Stephen Atkins attended all of the committee meetings and always provided constructive remarks and greatly contributed to the discussions of nominees. Stephen was a key member in evaluating Special Awards thanks to his careful evaluation and attention to detail.

Both, Stephen Atkins and Ari Fulton, were not able to evaluate all of the applicants before the meetings which delayed the committee final decisions. It is recommended that they begin the evaluation process as soon as the applications become available and direct questions to the chair in case if anything is unclear prior to the meetings.

The committee would like to give special thanks to Veronica Lukas for her invaluable feedback and helping the committee in rewriting the Bylaws as well as her help in creating the final version of the addendum to the General Committee Guide for ASC. Thank you to the staff, Sophia Mackey and Michele McLoughlin for creating new accounts for new members and sharing students’ applications digitally on a rolling basis via Teams, which helps to evaluate the applicants in a timely matter

Timothy Keogh, new member of the committee, volunteered to be the Chair of the committee for the upcoming year. He attended both sessions in the Summer of 2022 to prepare for his term.

We would like to acknowledge the outgoing member Wei Lai and Alfred McDonald for their productive service on this committee.

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