Of the Month awards return to Towson University with new incentives

By Zhane Amin, Contributing Writer

Of the Months, or OTM awards, are a longstanding initiative by the National Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) at Towson University to highlight individuals and events that’ve made an impact on the campus community. Now, new incentives are planned to make the recognition more impactful.

The NRHH is a student leadership organization that focuses on the promotion of philanthropy and recognition within the residence halls and are the campus level of National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH). They’ve done OTM’s since the Towson chapter’s inception, according to Rosanna Combs, the NRHH director of recognition.

“If you go to a really awesome event and you’re like, this deserves to be recognized, you would write the Of the Month award for that program,”  Combs said. Over 200 universities do Of the Month awards.

General nominations fall into 12 categories including advisors, resident assistants, first-year students and more. Program nominations–which highlight campus events–have six categories like service, diversity and education. The submissions include writing between 300 to 600 words on the person or event nominated.

Anyone on campus can submit an OTM for anyone else, but certain people like resident assistants and NRHH members are required to fill out OTM’s. They used to have to fill out one every month, now it’s two per semester, which helps Combs and the OTM committee’s goal of making it less of a chore and more about the recognition.

“Honestly we want more people to be recognized,” President of the NRHH, Brandon Grubbs said.

They’ve added swag bags for winners along with the certificates. If a particular OTM stands out to the review committee, it can advance up to regionals.

“And then once we choose…this one’s really good, we’re gonna send it to the regional level. And if regional level really liked it, they’ll be like, okay yeah this is good, we’re gonna send it to the national level,” Combs said.

Combs and the OTM committee use a rubric to decide with OTM’s are selected. They look for specificity and tangible ways the campus community was impacted. If an OTM goes to and wins regionals, it can then advance to the national level. 

Towson has had four OTM’s make it to the national level in their time of submitting them, according to Combs. 

Sarah Sternhagen contributed to this article.

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