Jodi Westrick
One might think that because I am a second semester senior I don’t care about what’s going on at Hillsdale with the same passion I had as an underclassman.
This assumption would be wrong.
Why you ask? Because I feel disillusioned by the awards given to seniors throughout the year.
I understand the need to recognize those who have done great things for the college throughout their four years here—but it seems we continually recognize the same people, leaving out many other outstanding seniors.
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but many of the same people have been nominated for all of the honors bestowed upon seniors: class officers, homecoming king and queen, outstanding senior man and woman and President’s Ball king and queen.
Why is there a need to continually nominate the same people? I can immediately think of six amazing seniors who haven’t been nominated for anything.
The problem with these awards is that they really have nothing to do with the senior class. We don’t have the final decision regarding who will be homecoming king and queen: That’s left to the entire campus and to the lame attempts made to campaign up the hill.
We suggest nominations for outstanding senior man and woman, but again, we don’t have the final say—and we have no voice whatsoever in who is chosen for President’s Ball king and queen.
In fact, the only voice we have is in the selection of our class officers, which is reminiscent of a high school popularity contest.
For the most part, I have been happy about who has won these awards. But there is no reason for one person to win multiple awards.
And as I mentioned before, a big annoyance of mine was the repetition of nominees. I realize that it is nearly impossible to recognize anyone and everyone who has done anything and everything, but, at the same time, we manage to leave a lot of well-known students out.
For example, Stephanie Riebe has done an amazing job of combining academics, volunteerism and campus involvement, all while possessing a high level of honor, which seems to be extremely important to the college. Where was she throughout any of the voting process?
And why hasn’t Ben Korom won an award beyond senior class president? He seems pretty outstanding in my book.
I don’t want to replace those seniors who have been given these awards—they deserve it—I just want to bring to light the faulty system which is used to name the winners.
What I’d really like to see is one award where the seniors nominate individuals, where no campaigning is allowed, and where the voting is done purely on a recognition that these students have left a mark on campus.
In my opinion, being recognized solely by your peers is one of the greatest compliments you could receive.
Westrick is a Hillsdale College senior majoring in speech.