Student Life Impact Awards Accepting Nominations

The 2026 Student Life Impact Awards are now open. 

Making your impact can have an impact on you, too. Nominations for Drexel University's Student Life Impact Awards opened recently, and nominations can be submitted for the two dozen awards until April 6. Students can nominate themselves or be nominated by someone else.

Run by the Student Life team, the awards have been around since 2011 and are mostly nonmonetary and related to students’ and advisers’ work with student organizations and fraternities and sororities, said Director of Special Events in Enrollment Management & Student Success Kaitlyn Delengowski.

There are two named awards: The Chuck Vincent Servant Leader Award, named for Chuck Vincent ’57, a graduate of the College of Engineering and founding member of the Drexel Veterans Alumni Network, which recognizes a student veteran, military family member or dependent or non-military affiliated supporter. There’s also the Dr. Jacqueline West Ford Award for Civility, Humanitarianism and Social Justice, named for a former senior associate dean of students, which recognizes students who demonstrate exceptional leadership in those areas.

Two awards are distributed with scholarships: the Drexel University Black Alumni Council (DUBAC) Impact Scholarship and Drexel Muslim Student Association (DMSA) Karam Scholarship. The DUBAC Scholarship provides support to students who are involved in University-recognized student organizations and possess strong commitment to a welcoming University and academic excellence. DUBAC has increased their support to four separate scholarships of $1,500 each this year.

The DMSA’s $1,000 Karam Award is funded mostly by the group’s alumni and focuses on honoring students who show leadership and service in giving back to their community through organizing social and educational programs, supporting community service and outreach efforts, and fostering community during events like Ramadan Iftars. Karam in Arabic means “generosity,” which is the driving ideal behind the award.

“Another part of that is if students are looking into the future,” Tasfia Wasima Rahman, mechanical engineering ’27, from DMSA said. “Do they plan on giving back in a similar way as alumni have supported us, and do they consider themselves part of the community beyond graduation so the organization can be sustainable? The people who get this award truly embody the spirit of the DMSA, so it's great that the scholarship gets to be a part of the larger Student Impact Life Awards, because then you get to see the impact that MSA students have on the entire student body when you go to the recognition ceremony.”

Of course, you have to meet certain baseline criteria to nominate or be nominated, such as a certain GPA and level of activity in a certain organization. Beyond that, a good nomination is one that’s well thought-out, Delengowski said. Sometimes Student Life staff will see several nominations for one student, but it’s clear that each one was simply copied and pasted — that won’t stand out.

“A good application involves someone who takes the time to talk about the student, organization or event in a meaningful way,” Delengowski said. “For the organization-based awards, I think that good nominees are related to things that are a little outside of the box or unique to something that’s happening in our world now. For example, one award I really like is our Collaborative Efforts Award, which recognizes events on campus where student groups work together to create and make a larger scope event.”

Stephanie Hernandez, PhD, assistant professor and director of undergraduate education in the Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health, who won the Undergraduate Student Organization Adviser Award in 2024 for her work with the Dornsife Undergraduate Student Government Organization (DUSGO), encourages nominees to just throw their names in and have confidence in themselves. She felt very fortunate and surprised to be nominated and win for what she said is a team effort.

“I think oftentimes folks don’t even think that they can nominate themselves, because they think they might not be qualified or good enough,” Hernandez said. “You have zero shots if you don’t take that step. It’s important to me to make sure students have a faculty adviser to help them as student leaders. It’s a great honor and a privilege to work with these students.”