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FREDERICK – Caylee M. Winpigler, a graduating senior in 91��Ƶר��’s Honors Program, has been selected as the 2021 nominee for the Maryland Collegiate Honors Council Portz Award for Outstanding Honors Student at a Four-Year College.

Winpigler will be presenting her paper “The Lloyd C. Culler Memorial Fountain and its Place in Baker Park” at the MCHC conference on Feb. 26 and 27.

In addition to her nomination to represent the College at the MCHC conference, Winpigler was also a member of the inaugural Chair of the Board Scholars class in 2018. Chair of the Board Scholarships are highly prestigious and provide full-tuition awards to academically superior students with a record of outstanding academic achievement as well as accomplishments outside the classroom.

Winpigler said this on the nomination, “I am thrilled to be representing 91��Ƶר�� College at the MCHC Conference this year. Of all the wonderful honors candidates at 91��Ƶר�� College, I am so grateful to have been chosen as the nominee.”

 “This is just one of the many unique and rewarding experiences that 91��Ƶר�� has offered me through undergraduate career,” Winpigler continued. “These experiences have made me a stronger student, a better critical thinker, and a well-rounded candidate for jobs and graduate school programs. Now with only a few months left of my undergraduate career, I could think of no better way to end it than with representing 91��Ƶר�� and the Frederick community at the MCHC conference.”

Each college or university can only nominate one student each year. The Honors Advisory Committee selects 91��Ƶר��’s nominee from students who are recommended by their professors. The winner of the Portz Award is announced on Friday evening at the conference.

91��Ƶר�� has won the Portz Award for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2020. Makhalia Aiken ’20 was awarded the honor in last year’s competition with her paper “Engineering of Melting Temperatures of Carbohydrate Binding Domains” which explored the genetic engineering of enzymes used in biofuel production.

 Portz Award Information 

The Maryland Collegiate Honors Council (MCHC) sponsors Portz Awards for Outstanding Honors Student at a Two-Year and at a Four-Year College in Maryland. Each award carries a stipend of $500. Each college or university is only permitted to nominate one student each year.

The three parameters for the award are

• grade point average (overall and in honors courses);
• initiative and leadership in the honors program, the institution, and the community; and
• academic excellence as illustrated in a project done for honors credit.
  
  Although the national Portz Award is given solely on the basis of the student’s project/paper, the Maryland Portz Award is given to a student whose project/paper is one component of the nomination.

According to the MCHC,

      the following attributes will be deemed to strengthen an application:

·         quality and breadth of academic achievement

·         quality and breadth of engagement beyond the classroom

·         academic work of high quality that indicates the ability to synthesize disparate materials

·         independence and originality in critical or creative thinking 

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