The honor of being selected as a Who’s Who student is bestowed upon deserving seniors each year. The 24 students selected this year were chosen because of their prominence in academic achievement, community service, leadership in extracurricular activities and future potential.
University faculty were asked to provide recommendations for seniors deserving of the award. Also, seniors may self-nominate themselves and can fill out an activity card, which is a detailed list of one’s achievements.
The Student Affairs Committee selected the 24 Who’s Who seniors. The committee is composed of five administrators and faculty and eight students.
This group reviewed an entire list of eligible seniors and discussed each one. Faculty nominations were taken into consideration, but a student not nominated had just as much chance as someone who did. All seniors were discussed objectively by the group, then selected by a point system.
The Who’s Who honor is highly regarded in academic and professional circles, therefore, the selection process should reflect the prestige it deserves.
Several facts suddenly become disturbing. First of all, why were seniors on the selecting committee? Why were four of the students (three were seniors) asked to be off-campus representatives just a week before the Who’s Who selection? And why weren’t department representatives asked to attend?
In answer to the first two questions, one of the seniors was a dorm president, and all dorm presidents are members of the Student Affairs Committee. The four students who were asked to be off-campus representatives were selected by ASF at the request of the Housing Department, because an open call for the positions was ignored.
In all, four seniors were on the committee, and all four made Who’s Who. These seniors did not participate when their names were up for vote.
The faculty’s responsibility in the Who’s Who selection is to nominate students. But faculty nomination was passed over if a deserving student was forgotten: Since students can make Who’s Who without being nominated by the faculty, shouldn’t department representatives help in the selection of students who were not nominated?
The Campus Times believes that faculty should play a larger and more important role in the selection of Who’s Who students, and that seniors should not be allowed to participate in the voting.
A special Who’s Who committee should be organized and composed of undergraduate students (preferably juniors selected by the committee chairperson) and department representatives. A pre-selection meeting can be open to any senior or faculty member who wishes to nominate himself or another candidate. All nominated students would then be reviewed by the Who’s Who Committee for final selection.
Seniors who go abroad in the fall and wish to be considered, should fill out a self-nomination card before leaving.
In both the pre-selection and Who’s Who Committee meeting, faculty representatives and seniors should be strongly encouraged to participate. Most of the time, only a selected few choose to attend meetings such as these.
Who’s Who is one of the highest nationwide honors given to graduating seniors. It is the entire University’s duty to see that the selection of these seniors reflect “Who’s Who” and not “who cares.”
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.