Periclean Scholar Awards Sub-Committee (Psas)
Annually the Periclean Honors Forum Council will constitute the Periclean Scholar Awards Sub-Committee as follows: two Honors Forum students and three faculty members of the Periclean Honors Forum Council not including the Honors Forum Director, who will oversee Academic Festival. The three faculty members of the Periclean Scholar awards Sub-Committee shall elect a Chair from their membership. For faculty, service on this sub-committee is concurrent with membership on the Periclean Honors Forum Council. Honors Forum students may serve on this sub-committee for one or more academic years.
| Year | Faculty Name | Department |
| 2024 | Madushi Raththagala | Chemistry (Chair) |
| 2024 | Joseph Cermatori | English |
| 2024 | Catherine Talley | World Languages & Literatures |
| 2024 | Carlee Gilbert ’24 | Student Representative |
PERICLEAN SCHOLAR AWARDS COMPETITION 2023-2024
The Periclean Honors Forum is pleased to announce the 2023-2024 Periclean Scholar Awards Competition.
The Periclean Scholar Awards recognize outstanding senior projects and theses and offer the winning students the opportunity to share their work with the Skidmore Community during an open ceremony hosted by the Periclean Honors Forum. The awards honor up to four students with a prize of $500 each.
A faculty member who believes that a senior’s work has achieved a notable level of excellence should submit the project (a thesis, research project, performance, exhibit, etc.) along with a letter of nomination no later than 4:30 PM on Friday, April 12, 2024. The date of a nominated performance or exhibit, such as entries from Dance, Music, Studio Art, and Theater, should be submitted to the Periclean Scholar Awards Committee two weeks in advance of the performance or presentation so that the committee members can make arrangements to view and/or record the event.
Letters of nomination should outline the project’s strengths and offer context to guide the committee members as they review the work.
The Periclean Scholar Awards committee strongly urges those advising senior work to caution students to be alert to the submission deadline of Friday, April 12, as eligible projects must be submitted by that day. Partially completed projects cannot be submitted, and the committee cannot accept late entries in the competition.
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact: Madushi Raththagala: mraththa@liashapiro.com, 518-580-8193
Periclean Scholar Awards Guidelines: Nomination Letters
Letters from faculty who nominate candidates for the Periclean Scholar Awards play a critical role in preparing and informing the selection committee. Because the committee members are unlikely to be experts in the nominated fields, the letters help make the case for nominees.
We also ask that you give serious consideration to the following issues. If a student is nominated by more than one faculty member of the same department for two separate projects, we would ask those faculty to meet and try to come to a consensus about which project is more worthy of the nomination. In the case of collaborative work, we recommend only one nomination per project. If two students jointly author a paper stemming from collaborative research, the committee would consider awarding one prize for the two to share. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we ask faculty to act as authoritative arbiters when considering a series of projects of like nature.
The committee strongly suggests no more than one submission per faculty member per field.
Questions that nominating letters should address are:
1. How does this project (program, exhibit, performance) meet the demands of the course, independent study, or field experience that the student undertook?
2. How creative or imaginative are the conception and execution of the project?
3. What is the level of difficulty of the project in general and how does it compare with the level of difficulty of other senior projects undertaken in your department at Skidmore?
4. How much assistance has the student received from the faculty supervisor or collaborator?
5. What does the project contribute to the field?
6. What is it that makes the paper, experiment, performance, or exhibit truly memorable?
7. In the case of one-time performances or exhibits upon which the selection committee members base their judgments, nominators might also provide a retrospective analysis.
Notification for a nominated performance or exhibit should be sent to: mraththa@liashapiro.com & lbradsha@liashapiro.com.
Preferred submission format is electronic.
All completed submissions should be sent to Lisa Bradshaw
Office: Ladd Hall 321