First Ferrari award to be given for leadership
By Jessica Sanders
Staff Reporter

Juniors and seniors will be thinking about how the mission statement applies to their lives as they apply for the new Michael R. Ferrari University Mission Award, said Andrea Reed, vice president of House of Student Representatives.

The award will be presented to the student who best embodies the TCU mission statement, said Reed, a senior social work and international business major.

“It’s different from other leadership awards or academic awards in the fact that it’s not necessarily about being an upfront leader or visible leader on campus,” Reed said. “You can be a very good leader and not have those positions. You can be a very good leader and not be a stellar academic person.”

Reed said the winner will be someone who embodies the qualities listed in the mission statement.

“We are looking for someone who has a global learning experience,” Reed said. “Someone who has demonstrated ethical leadership, who has demonstrated community responsibility.”

Students enter the contest by submitting a one-page essay explaining how they represent the mission statement, Reed said. The writers of the top four essays will be interviewed and the winner will be chosen by a committee of Student Government Association members, she said.

The winner will receive a personal letter from Chancellor Ferrari, have their name engraved on a plaque in the Student Center and be announced, along with the top three essays, at the Annual Celebration of Leadership Awards April 30, Reed said.

Billy Prewitt, a senior economics and finance major, said he would have entered the contest if someone had nominated him, but he did not want to nominate himself.

“It seems egocentric to nominate myself as a philanthropist,” Prewitt said.
John Billingsley, a senior accounting major, said he does not feel strange nominating himself because the application was e-mailed to all juniors and seniors.

“I don’t feel like it’s a nomination as much as a simple application process,” Billingsley said.

Reed said it is possible that some students, like Prewitt, didn’t apply either because they didn’t feel comfortable nominating themselves or because it is a new award and they might not have heard of it.

“In the future it’s going to be a nomination process,” Reed said. “This year it was a mass e-mail because it was a new award.”

Reed said Jose Luis Hernandez, chairman of the Academic Affairs Committee, wanted to create an academic award earlier in the year, but she thought the idea was too broad.

“I thought it would be really cool if we had a university mission award,” Reed said. “And so I gave (Hernandez) that idea and he just kind of ran with that.”

House’s administrative cabinet came up with the idea of naming the award after Ferrari because he refined and emphasized the importance of the mission statement in recent years, said Hernandez, a freshman music major.

“We wanted to honor his efforts and honor his time here with an award on his behalf,” Hernandez said.

j.d.sanders@tcu.edu