Boyd Leadership Prize
Jeffery H. Boyd ’78 Leadership Prize
Established: 2018
Purpose and Qualifications: The Jeffery H. Boyd ’78 Prize will recognize the overall contributions exemplifying leadership on campus made during the college career of a graduating senior. The recipient will represent the qualities of leadership that Jeff Boyd showed as a student and, then later, as the chair of the St. Lawrence University Board of Trustees from 2013 to 2018: humble effectiveness, focused purpose, and inspired creativity. The capacity to bring people together for common good purpose, as a bridge-builder or as a fair-minded arbiter, will be the general criteria of this prize. The qualities of personal integrity and the capacity to face adversity, or to help others face personal challenges, will be found in the individual selected. The expectation is that the recipient will be a strong student in academic performance and have been involved in several campus organizations or activities from the first days on campus through the senior year.
Nominations will need to include specific examples of a person’s persistence, courage, and kindness as a leader who has earned peer respect and admiration. The prize will honor an individual’s ability to make a difference, even a change, on campus. It will also recognize how the individual was personally changed by the St. Lawrence liberal arts experience, developing deeper appreciation of intellectual interests and how those interests led to moments of discovery that were acted upon.
Selection Process: Nominations from the faculty, staff, and student body will be invited in mid-February and close by March 31. Nominations will be received by to the President’s Office. Finalists may be asked to submit additional information. A selection committee composed of the dean of academic affairs, dean of students, chair of faculty council, and university chaplain will review the nominations and shall make its recommendation to the President.
Presentation: The Boyd Prize will be awarded at Commencement.
Award: The recipient will receive a small silver bowl, engraved with the name of the prize, the name of the individual, and the date awarded; and also included will be a cash award. A permanent bronze tableau will be placed in Vilas Hall listing all the prior recipients on small name plaques.
Source: The Jeffery H. Boyd ’78 Prize was created and fully funded by individual donors serving on the University’s Board of Trustees at the time of Mr. Boyd’s final meeting as Board Chair in May 2018. The first recipient will be selected from the Class of 2019 and will be presented the prize at Commencement 2019.
Staff Liaison: Lisa Cania, VP and Chair of the Commencement Committee
Recipients
2021
Grace Harkins
2020
Matthew Ramm
2019
Tumo Koontse