Statement of Principle

By the Chancellor’s Awards Committee

Concerning Award Recipients

The Chancellor’s Awards Committee seeks to foster appreciation for excellence in academic work and student activities at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It seeks to identify areas in which achievement is not but should be recognized, and seeks to reward superior achievement in an annual ceremony at which the University community celebrates its outstanding student accomplishments. In fulfillment of that purpose, the Committee has been charged with the responsibility for establishing and administering criteria for inclusion of awards in the Ceremony, encouraging the establishment of new awards to meet perceived needs; for determining the appropriateness of awards and prizes to be included in the Ceremony; and for planning the Ceremony.

In pursuit of excellence the Committee has sought to accentuate the unique qualities of superior achievement. It believes good work is commonplace in this learning community. It also believes that superior achievement is, by definition, rare, and that the best in any endeavor represents singular achievement. In the belief that the number and kinds of awards representing student life and academic work are large and inclusive, the Committee has sought to expand the list of student endeavors in which outstanding accomplishment is worthy of specific University recognition. In pursuit of the ideal of superior personal achievement the Committee has sought to recognize those students whose achievements are uniquely excellent. By this reasoning the Committee has held out the ideal of single recipients of all awards as the most appropriate means of honoring singular achievement.

At the same time, the Committee recognizes the occasional circumstance in which an award selection committee might be unable to choose between equally qualified candidates for an award. However conscientious, the Committee’s efforts might end in a tie. While the Awards Committee’s commitment to the goal of selecting single recipients for awards in the Chancellor’s Ceremony is unchanged, it also accepts in principle the rare but no less real possibility of selecting more than a single recipient for a given award.

The Committee believes that sponsors who cannot accept the principle of singular recipients should not seek to have their awards included in the Chancellor’s Awards Ceremony, and as a matter of practice, it reserves the right to confirm that multiple candidates proposed are equally qualified. It will include in the Ceremony only awards of those sponsors who formally subscribe to the principle of single recipients and pledge to structure their selection process to achieve that goal. For a few awards established in the past, a single recipient of each sex has been deemed acceptable; however, no new award that designates the sex of the recipient will be accepted.

The Committee welcomes and encourages the establishment of appropriate new awards.