Ambassadors Program Information
College Park Scholars
The College Park Scholars (Scholars) Ambassadors are a group of Scholars students who volunteer to help make the Scholars program a success. Ambassadors help recruit prospective students to the program, assist the Scholars central staff at a variety of special events and projects, continually help to improve the program by offering informal feedback on a variety of issues, and work toward building a stronger community across all the Scholars programs.
Activities:
- 1. Volunteer assistance with Scholars special events and recruiting events.
- Each year the Scholars program must recruit prospective students (high school seniors) to encourage them to enroll at UM and join the Scholars program. As you may know, each year Maryland has been improving the academic profile of the incoming freshmen. Scholars is a huge part of this recruiting success. Consequently, Scholars does a lot of recruiting during the year at special recruiting open houses. Students are always the best recruiters. Other needs include students who are willing to host prospective students overnight and show their rooms or give tours during admission open houses, especially in the spring. Scholars also puts on a variety of special events during the course of the year that require logistical support (such as Service Day).
- 2. Regular attendance at Ambassadors meetings.
- Usually, the Ambassadors meet every two weeks (sometimes more frequently, sometimes less, depending on the time of semester) and discuss different issues going on in Scholars. In this respect, the Ambassadors serve as a group that gives the central office feedback on any number of issues. In the past, Scholars has sought and employed Ambassadors feedback on revising the Scholars brochure, designing student evaluations as well as the alumni survey. Occasionally, guest speakers will be invited to speak at Ambassadors meetings on leadership and career development topics.
- 3. Other special projects.
- Each year, the Scholars community gets involved in a variety of activities on and off campus. Scholars Ambassadors often help to organize, facilitate, and support these activities.
Time Commitment:
The amount of time that it takes to be an Ambassador is up to you. The lowest level of involvement is having your name in our email list and perhaps helping us out at one time or another. Certainly, you can help out at as many events as you would like. The next level of involvement is to attend Ambassadors meetings regularly. The third highest level of involvement, assuming that you are helping out at events and going to meetings, would be helping us with special projects.
Ambassador Point System:
In order to keep a record of how much you do as an Ambassador, we have developed a point system for the number of ambassadorial activities that you participate in. The listing for points is below:
- Volunteer to Show a Room: 1 Ambassador Point
- Attend Ambassador Meetings: 3 Ambassador Points
- Hosting Students Overnight: 3 Ambassador Points
- Actually Showing Room: 7 Ambassador Points
- Contributing a picture to the slide show/brochure: 7 Ambassador Points
- Serving on a Student Panel: 7 Ambassador Points
- Helping at Special Events: 7 Ambassador Points
- Service Day Logistics Assistant: 10 Ambassador Points
- Online Chat: 10 Ambassador Points
- Service Day Student Leader: 25 Ambassador Points
Once you reach "Ambassador status," we send an email to your faculty director to note your service to the program. We also send a list of ambassadors to the faculty directors at the end of each semester. In order to be on this list, a student must have a minimum of 7 Ambassador Points.
Rewards:
Ambassadors help the Scholars program tremendously, and each Ambassador is entitled to a sense of achievement because of his or her contribution to the on-going success of the program. Aside from this intangible reward, students can benefit from the program by making connections with other students, developing their public speaking and interpersonal skills through recruiting and attending meetings, and making connections with Scholars staffers and faculty who can one day serve as references for jobs, internships, or fellowships. Ambassadors should put the experience on their resumes and use this description when they summarize their activities in the program.
If you have more questions, contact us!
Ambassador Coordinators:
Mike Colson
Associate Director
Scholars Central Office
1135 Cumberland Hall
301-405-0795 (x50795)
mcolson@umd.edu
Ken Joseph
Admissions Coordinator
Scholars Central Office
1135 Cumberland Hall
301-314-9483 (x49483)
kajoseph@umd.edu
