Develop, maintain, and implement a procedure for advertising scholarship opportunities, receiving scholarship applications, evaluating applications, and awarding scholarships to successful applicants. The scholarship program will be divided into Undergraduate and Graduate Scholarship subcommittees. The procedure for the graduate scholarships is as follows:
1. In December of each year, the Chair confirms with the state board that we are continuing the scholarship program, and determines the total budget and the amount of the individual awards. The Chair works with the contact person who sends out scholarship applications and flyers (flyers prepared by Ohio APWA) to Civil Engineering Departments and Financial Aid offices of Universities in the State of Ohio. It’s identified on the application form (and cover letter to the universities) that applications are due by March 1 of the following year (or the next closest day if the first falls on a weekend). Applications are sent to the Chair. Attached is a copy of the blank scholarship application and sample cover letter.
2. As the Chair receives applications s/he forwards them to the reviewers.
3. We independently perform our reviews of the applications. Attached is a review spreadsheet that we’ve used in the past, but each reviewer is free to develop their own spreadsheet.
4. Rankings of all of the applicants are forwarded to the Chair by March 15 (1, 2, 3, 4,…), and the rankings are summarized. The lowest score wins. For example, if someone is ranked 1st by all four reviewers, their overall score is 4 which is the lowest possible score).
5. The Chair sends letters (either congratulations or regrets) to all applicants. The letters to the successful applicants also include an invitation to our State conference to receive recognition. The Chair also prepares letters to the universities of the successful applicants and sends these letters to our State treasurer (Valerie Klingman) so she can send a check to the Civil Engineering Office for their account.
