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Strive for the prize

The Ivory Prize for Excellence in Student Leadership is now accepting nominations.

The Ivory Prize for Excellence in Student Leadership seeks to recognize and encourage student involvement and leadership both on campus and in the community. Now in its fourth year, one or two nominees receive a $2,000 award and up to $10,000 is invested in the program or effort for which they are being recognized. Recipients are also recognized, along with other past recipients, on the Ivory Prize for Excellence in Student Leadership plaque in the J. Willard Marriott Library.

Nominations are due Friday, Feb. 24.

You are eligible for the prize if you have graduated from the U no later than 2012 (within the past five years), or are currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate degree program at the University of Utah. Self-nominations are welcome.

Past recipients include 2016 winner Jacob Nold for Labs for Liberty, and 2015 winners Allyson Armstrong and Katharine Blumenthal, physical therapy doctoral students.

Nold and his mother work to connect trained service dogs with veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The effort was in response to the alarming rate of 22 veteran suicides per day.

Armstrong and Blumenthal, co-founded the Student-Run Pro Bono Physical Therapy Clinic in November 2013. Since it opened, the Department of Physical Therapy faculty have aligned coursework with events at the clinic, including a doctoral seminar in which students reviewed and provided evidence-based critiques of care delivered by students at the clinic. The project has grown to include students from the physical therapy assistant program, as well as nutrition, medicine, pharmacy and nursing and has prompted other clinics along the Wasatch Front to engage students in physical therapy clinical services.

Clark Ivory, former chair of the University of Utah Board of Trustees, established the Ivory Prize for Excellence in Student Leadership in 2013 to recognize extraordinary and influential student-led projects that positively impact the campus and/or the broader community. Since then, the Prize has recognized one to two students each year for demonstrating a positive influence on student success and/or fostering efforts that further meaningful change on issues facing the community.

Nominations yourself or someone you know today.