Student Union (SU) announced the SU Leadership Award to honor student leadership on campus, April 3. Student leaders on Washington University’s campus had until April 19, 2024 to apply for this year’s application cycle. 

This year is the first year that SU is accepting applications for the SU Leadership Award. According to the Student Union Website, the $5,000 award will be given annually to 15 undergraduates in unpaid leadership roles in recognized student organizations, such as SU, Campus Life, clubs, or departments, based on merit.

The award recipients are selected by a committee, as listed on the application site, which includes representatives from Student Affairs, the Office of the Provost, Student Financial Services, and SU. 

In a joint written statement to Student Life, former SU President Emily Chen and former SU Vice President of Finance, Mishka Narasimhan, said SU wanted to reward passionate student leaders on campus through this award. 

“It was set up to recognize students for the incredible passion and time they put into extracurricular activities and the impact it has on our campus community,” Narasimhan and Chen wrote in their statement. 

Throughout this academic year, Chen, Narasimhan, and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Anna Gonzalez, formulated the idea for the award, which was then discussed with the full leadership of the 2023-2024 SU. The proposal was then accepted by Chancellor Andrew Martin. 

The award’s funding comes from the annual returns of a $2 million endowment fund that was established this year using the SU budget.

“As the endowed money was built up from the SU budget, which is directly from the student activity fee, we wanted to make sure we were giving back to the students directly,” Narasimhan and Chen wrote.

Narasimhan said the endowment mainly came from student groups that did not fully spend their allocated funds by the end of the academic year, also known as carryforward funding.

During the 2021-2022 academic year, funding approached normal levels since the decrease from the pandemic, but in-person events had not fully resumed, resulting in an unusually large carryforward of $2 million. The current SU leadership inherited the carryforward at the start of the 2022-2023 academic year.

“In the past, carryforward funding has helped to create initiatives like the SU Opportunity Fund and the Student Mental Health fund — both great initiatives that are still benefiting students today!” Narasimhan and Chen wrote.

Chen and Narasimhan said the award exemplifies SU’s goal as a governmental student body.

“The Student Union doesn’t just exist to allocate money to student groups or pass resolutions on issues that affect students,” Chen and Narasimhan wrote. “This award represents an additional plank to our mission: cultivating creative, inclusive, and respectable leaders who shape our campus for the better.”