Students Honored with Who’s Who Award

Over 50 Hudson Valley students were honored and recognized as Who’s Who Among Students in American Colleges in Universities at an award ceremony in the BTC auditorium on Feb. 18.

The Who’s Who award is given to students who are nominated directly by the college faculty and staff.

The students who receive this award have to meet criteria based on their GPA, participation and leadership within school organization and extracurricular activities, community involvement, and future leadership ability or potential.

The award is offered by more than 2, 842 schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The award was created by Pettus Randall after being named to many honor societies and awards throughout college.

Randall was nominated but could not accept his awards as many of the recognitions and societies had dues and fees that he could not afford. He created the Who’s Who award in order to create recognition for high achieving students with no monetary expectation for the student acknowledged.

The ceremony began with a brief introduction to the ceremony and an explanation of the award and how it came to be.

President Drew Matonak followed the introduction with a message for the recognized students.

He told students that he had once been recognized by the award but that the expectations the students were held to for 2013 were much different and even more demanding than back when he had received the award.

He thanked the students for their work in the community and at the school. Following Matonak’s words, the ceremony moved on to focus on the awardees and told of the specific achievements the students had reached in order to obtain the award.

The average GPA of the students was a 3.66, higher than that of the average needed for the award, which is a 3.2.

A list of some of the school organizations and activities the students were involved in included Entrepreneur’s Club, Muslim Student Association, and Phi Theta Kappa, among many others.

The list of community involvement was just as long as the school involvements, including 4-H and Habitat for Humanity, among numerous others.

After the students were thanked for their involvement and leadership, the students were called to the stage by name to receive their award and to have their picture taken with the President.

The students recognized by this award received a certificate of recognition and have the opportunity to win a scholarship.