Presidential Service Awards
The Presidential Service Award recognizes undergraduate and graduate students who dedicate themselves to promoting social justice, community awareness, and civic engagement on campus and in the community. This award acknowledges students who made outstanding efforts in these areas and too often go unrecognized and unrewarded.
Presidential Service Award Requirements
- Only open to UF undergraduate, graduate, or professional students who are graduating in the current academic year.
- Undergraduate students must have completed 400 hours of community service during their overall time as a UF student (i.e. a graduating senior completed approximately 100 hours a year since enrolling at UF).
- Graduate and Professional students must have completed 200 hours of community service during their time as UF graduate student.
- A list of community partners’ contact information (phone number and email address) and the total number of hours served with the community partner. The Brown Center for Leadership & Service will send a verification form directly to each partner listed in the application.
- Photo of nominee working with community partners or a professional head shot*
- Reflection essay (no more than 500 words) answering the following question: Describe your service experience(s) as a UF student. Why did you decide to engage in service and what did you learn from your experience(s)?
*For the photo requirement, if the service time has been with children and/or other vulnerable populations, please instead submit a professional head shot in lieu of the picture of you doing service. At the awards reception, a slide show of each winner’s picture and quote about why service was impactful will be featured.
Additional Awards
This is to recognize a UF undergraduate, graduate, or professional student who was enrolled in a service learning or did community based research as part of a course and extended their involvement in that project beyond the time of the class.
Requirements:
- Eligible for the Presidential Service Award
- Must have a letter of recommendation from the faculty member who worked with the student in the class or research project
- Students must submit a short 200-500 word essay answering the following question: Describe your involvement in the service learning or community based learning experience. Why did you continue to work with this experience beyond the semester of the course and what have you learned from this experience?
This is to recognize a UF undergraduate, graduate, or professional student who was enrolled in a service learning or did community based research as part of a course and extended their involvement in that project beyond the time of the class.
Requirements:
- Eligible for the Presidential Service Award
- Must be an undergraduate student.
- Must have a letter of recommendation from the faculty member who worked with the student in the class or research project
- Students must submit a short 200-500 word essay answering the following question: Describe your involvement in service activities during your time as a UF student. What impact have you made with a community partner(s) and what have you learned from this experience?
This is to recognize a UF graduate/professional student who engaged in service activities or projects that was exemplary. The activities can be co-curricular (outside of the classroom) or curricular (inside the classroom).
Requirements:
- Eligible for the Presidential Service Award
- Must be an undergraduate student.
- Must have a letter of recommendation from the faculty member who worked with the student in the class or research project
- Students must submit a short 200-500 word essay answering the following question: Describe your involvement in service activities during your time as a UF student. What impact have you made with a community partner(s) and what have you learned from this experience?
Recognizes community partners (non UF faculty or staff) who have gone above and beyond in promoting UF students to pursue service and leadership opportunities.
Requirements
- Cannot be a current UF faculty or staff member
- Letter of Recommendation (to be uploaded in this application)
Recognizes UF faculty or staff who have gone above and beyond in promoting UF students to pursue
service and leadership opportunities.
service and leadership opportunities.
Requirements
- Must be a current UF faculty or staff member
- Letter of Recommendation (to be uploaded in this application)
FAQs
For the purposes of this award, community service is defined as time volunteered which benefits a community or its non-profit institutions and exposes students to social issues. Service that will count towards the award:
- Any service opportunity or hours you completed during your time as a UF student (any service performed from the first semester to the graduating semester will count).
- Any service opportunities or hours that can be verified by a community partner.
- Direct Service: Cook/serve/deliver food for the homebound or homeless; Tutor, mentor, or coach youth; visit with the elderly
- Indirect Service: Participate in an environmental project; Build low-income housing; Fundraise for a nonprofit beneficiary
- Research Service: Work in a laboratory that contributes to the solution of a community need; Test water to assist with restoration efforts
- Advocacy Service: Conduct information campaigns; Lobby on behalf of a community issue; Conduct nonpartisan voter registration drives
Types of opportunities:
- Service opportunities that have been court-ordered or sanctioned.
- Opportunities that have been paid (i.e. you received a paycheck for your work).
Only students graduating in the current academic year are eligible to apply.
Your service experience will be verified via a service log (below) submitted with your application which includes all of the hours that you served, the agency you served with, contact information, dates of participation, and a reference signature to verify those hours.
You may also provide an outside or organization service log/s as long as it includes all of the above details in addition to an official letterhead from the organization you volunteered with. We will NOT approve hours that do not have all of the criteria listed on their log.
No. You may count hours completed in other places towards the hours requirement.
The organization advisor should sign off on service hours.