Academic Awards Presented During Unprecedented Times
This year, as schools and communities moved to virtual learning and telework in the face of a worldwide pandemic, organizations showed creativity and resilience in honoring awardees.
AFCEA honors military students at the end of each academic year with ROTC Honor Awards and Military Service Academy Awards. This year, as schools and communities moved to virtual learning and telework in the face of a worldwide pandemic, organizations showed creativity and resilience in honoring awardees.
AFCEA provides ROTC Honor Awards to juniors majoring in command, control, communications, computers and intelligence/information technology (C4I/IT) nominated by an ROTC unit. The top graduating senior for military branches nationwide is awarded the Distinguished Performance Award, and the top graduate in electrical engineering at the service academies is recognized. Recognition is also given to honor excellence in information warfare writing. Despite nationwide restrictions on public gatherings, these awards were sent to units and institutions around the country to honor recipients at virtual ceremonies and presentations.
Unprecedented times required institutions to think differently about how to honor recipients this year. Many ceremonies moved to virtual online events or were postponed. The Expeditionary Warfare School in Quantico hosted a drive-through event that replaced the traditional ceremony. As Lt. Col. Matthew Erickson, USMC (Ret.), operations manager, Expeditionary Warfare School, says, this “afforded personal and genuine interaction between each student and their faculty advisor before graduates departed for their next duty station.” AFCEA would like to congratulate all of the awardees.
To volunteer to help with future award presentations, sign up at foundation.afcea.org.
