All exceptional women please stand up. The Women's Center is hosting the 16th annual Maggie Awards, honoring female role models in both the university and broader Chico communities.
The award was named after Maggie Pattison, who worked as an office manager for Associated Students Government for 23 years before her retirement, according to a Maggie Awards brochure. In addition to being an inspiration for the awards, Pattison also set up a scholarship fund in her name for a student in A.S. government.
The awards are given to a wide range of women, with categories covering girls under 18, undergraduates, graduate and re-entry students, faculty and staff, community members and senior women, according to the brochure.
The awards ceremony and the choosing of recipients are handled completely by Women's Center members such as Becki Lee, director of the Women's Center.
"The awards are for women who have done great things in the community or campus," she said. "They can be a professor who has done inspiring work or an activist."
Additionally, Carol Burr, former English department chair and multicultural and gender studies director, will give an award for lifetime achievement, Lee said. The Sean Cummins award will be given to an outstanding man.
"A board of paid staff members looks at the nominations and try and pick new winners," she said. "We don't want to repeat winners and make sure there are new ones every year."
Lee has nominated people for Maggie Awards in the past, but as part of the board that decides the winner, she is no longer allowed to submit nominations, she said. Interns at the Women's Center who are not part of the deciding board can nominate people for the Maggie Awards.
Lee has known several professors who won the award, as well as a woman who won an award as a student and is now a professor, Lee said.
The current list of nominees was not available for viewing, but will be sent out after Friday, when nominations close, and before May 7 when the awards are held, she said.
Winners are notified following the board's decision - sometimes to the surprise of the winners, such as 2008's Outstanding Faculty award recipient, Debra Johnson.
She was nominated by one of her students who interned at the Women's Center during the 2008 spring semester.
"A lot of faculty go out of their way to help students in and out of the classroom," Johnson said. "It was nice to be recognized for that."
Last year's winners also include Shyla Black, Anna Rose Ball, Tanya Flores, Dorthy Parker, Rabina Khan, and Denise Crosswhite, adviser to the Women's Center.
Crosswhite has been a staff coordinator for the Women's Center, the Environmental Action and Resource Center and the Community Legal Information Center for two years. Last year, she received the "Phenomenal Staff Member" award.
Crosswhite helps with training programs, budget and staffing, but has no part in the managing of the Maggie Awards, she said. That task rests completely on the students who work at the Women's Center.
Crosswhite has nominated people in the past for Maggie Awards, and is planning on attending this year's award ceremony.
"I try to go every year when I can," Crosswhite said.
The Maggie Awards will be held from 6 to 8 p.m., May 7 at Albert E. Warrens Reception Center. Nominations close on Friday. Students wanting to nominate someone can pick up an application at the Women's Center.
Stephanie Maynard can be reached at
smaynard@theorion.com
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