CFAW Attendees Have the Opportunity to Compete for $10,000 Scholarship

Prospective Liberty University students attending College for a Weekend in February and April will have the opportunity to win one of several $10,000 scholarships by entering video project, essay and musical skill-based contests.

High school juniors and seniors can respond to prompts determined by the School of Music and the School of Communication and Digital Content. Faculty at the schools will evaluate the submissions or performances and select the winners.

“It’s a perfect opportunity, especially for kids that want to go into these areas of study,” Miles Hunter, the resident enrollment diversity coordinator said.  “(The students) are going to get communication and feedback from somebody who has excelled in (their field of interest). It’s perfect for CFAW students and perfect for us on the recruitment side.”

Students participating in the SOM contests can either write an essay explaining how they personally live a lifestyle of worship or write out their salvation testimony and perform the song “Amazing Grace” on their preferred instrument, including voice. These submissions will be presented to a panel of judges during CFAW Feb. 22-25, and two $10,000 scholarships will be awarded.

The SCDC will award a scholarship to the student who creates the best video answering the prompt: what dream has God given you? These “We the Creators” contest submissions will be reviewed and a winner will be decided before the CFAW weekend in April. On April 7, students who entered the scholarship contest will speak to SCDC faculty about their videos and participate in a red-carpet event where the winners will be announced.

“With April being the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death, we wanted to have a contest where Dr. King is celebrated,” Hunter said. “The ‘We the Creators’ team came up with the idea to have (students) put together a three-minute video about what dreams God has given them, obviously with a nod to Dr. King and his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.”

According to Dr. Chris Underation, associate professor in the School of Communication and Digital Content, another purpose of the “We the Creators” project is to solidify the identity of the new School of Communication and Digital Content.

“The school is new this year, and one of the things that they’re trying to do through a variety of means is help brand the school — give it an identity, give it a focus, give it a purpose,” Underation said.

According to Ellie Richardson, the event coordinator for “We the Creators”, all SCDC faculty are expected to be involved in the project. They will review the submissions as they are received and will meet one-on-one with each student who submitted an entry.

“(The students) can see how they’re stacking up and measuring (against their peers), and then the winner gets this red-carpet treatment… They get the whole enchilada—plus a $10,000 scholarship,” Underation said. “It’s a lot like a legitimate contest.”

According to Hunter, the facilitators of “We the Creators” are hoping for about 300 submissions.

Underation says that it’s difficult to know whether these scholarship contests will actually benefit the departments in regard to recruitment efforts.

“When (a prospective student) is looking at a college, they’re generally just trying to stick their toe in the water, like, ‘Could I see myself here?'” Underation said. “Contests, I think, are for people who are… (saying) I’m going here and nowhere else.”

Hunter said the success of the project will ultimately come down to more than simply the number of contest submissions or CFAW attendees.

“We want the project to be successful, but then you have to ask the question, how do you measure success?” Hunter said. “We want to measure it by the overall experience — did (each student) feel that they were special? Whether they win or not, we want each student to know and understand that there was time and a genuine effort taken toward (their work).”

More information about the contests can be found at www.liberty.edu/ms/worshiplifestyle/ and https://www.liberty.edu/ms/wethecreators/