Committee postpones Crystal Tiger

The Crystal Tiger Award — presented for the first time to Colin Powell in February 2004 — will not be awarded this year due to scheduling difficulties, according to members of the student selection committee.

Hoping to establish an annual Crystal Tiger tradition, the committee is considering nominees for a fall 2005 award.

"Our mission presents an obvious difficulty," committee member Andrew Bruck '05 said in an email. "Anyone prominent enough to receive consideration for the Crystal Tiger is also busy enough to make scheduling near-impossible."

Recipients of the award are expected to spend a day on campus "engaging students and participating in campus life" in addition to giving a formal address, Bruck said.

"The Crystal Tiger was never designed to be just another traditional award — we don't want someone famous flying in, giving a speech in Richardson, accepting the prize and flying out," he added.

Several individuals wanted to accept the award, Bruck said, but none could come at a convenient time during the year.

The Crystal Tiger Award was created by Lee Vartan '00 and Michael Bosworth '00 in order to bring a greater variety of speakers to campus.

The award "is intended to recognize those who have demonstrated a strong commitment to enriching the human experience and who have inspired students at Princeton to pursue the same goal," according to the website.

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But some students are skeptical about the need for such an award.

"Personally, put me down on the apathy side," Ben Elias '05 said. "It doesn't really strike me as an important thing."

In an effort to make the selection process more transparent, this year's nominees were no longer handpicked by the committee. Instead, Bruck said, University undergraduates submitted recommendations on the Crystal Tiger website.

The selection committee declined to provide the names of potential 2005 award recipients.

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Several changes were also made to ensure that the selection committee is representative of the student body. There are twice as many members on the committee, which now consists of six undergraduates, and an application process has replaced nomination by the University administration.

Though Bruck believes last year's choice of Powell was appropriate given the award's mission, he anticipates that future recipients will be selected with the requirement that they spend time interacting with students firmly in mind.

"We aren't going to award a public figure simply because they're well-known, but instead because we believe that their presence on campus would be rewarding for students," Bruck said.

The committee declined to explain how Powell was chosen as the award recipient last year. But Jacqui Perlman '05, a member of the selection committee, said several of Powell's qualities led the committee to make their selection.

"Colin Powell was chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Crystal Tiger Award because of his dedication to causes beyond himself, as a soldier, adviser, diplomat and role model," Perlman said in an email.

The search for the next award winner — presided over by an expanded selection committee deciding from a wider pool of applicants — will have to overcome the same scheduling difficulties that left this academic year lacking an award recipient.

"We feel strongly about selecting someone who can spend more than an hour or two at the University, and we are willing to wait until we find an individual able to do so," Bruck said.