Illinois’ Student Program was honored with five awards Tuesday at the National Education Association’s Student Program’s Leadership Conference in New Orleans.
“In April, we submitted nominations for 10 awards,” said Meredith Byers, head of the IEA-SP. “The nominations require considerable documentation and we were rewarded by being able to bring home five awards!”
The program was awarded the 2009-10 Excellent State Affiliate award that is one of the top honors and reflects the work of the entire student program, Byers said.
In addition, IEA-SP was honored with awards for:
- Outstanding State Student Leader award given to Anthony Palumbo the 2009-10 IEA student leader.
- Outstanding State Newsletter award for “Student Speak,” published by state student officer Laura Hofer, the program’s public relations coordinator.
- Outstanding Local Excellence award to the Student Education Association at Eastern Illinois University in the category of campuses with 100-200 members.
- Outstanding Local Excellence award to the Student Education Association at Illinois State University in the category of campuses with more than 200 members. It is the fourth year in a row that the ISU Student Program received this honor.
And, the IEA-SP received recognition for new local chapter creation for a new branch at Parkland College and for the student program that achieved the fifth largest state membership increase.
“The 10 student leaders that attended were extremely excited,” Byers said, noting that they are determined to “defend their crown” by working toward earning the 2010-11 Outstanding State Affiliate Excellence honor next year in Chicago.
Also, two members of the 2010-11 state student officer team were elected by their peers during the conference to serve in national positions. Katie Kreis was elected to a one-year term on the NEA Board of Directors and Christie Kiely was elected as a student member to the NEA Resolutions Committee. Both will remain in New Orleans this week as delegates to the NEA RA.
Illinois Education Association is an association of more than 130,000 members composed of Illinois elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty and staff, educational support professionals, retired educators and college students preparing to become teachers.
KUDOS to this year’s IEA student leaders and to Meredith! What a wonderful validation of the great work you did this year in the IEA Student Program! I have enjoyed working with these young people this year and am so proud of each and every one of them. You deserve every award you get! Congratulations!
Linda Walcher
IEA Retired Mentor Program Coordinator
Great job!!!