Samueli School Earns CASE Recognition
Jan. 25, 2018 - The Samueli School has distinguished itself yet again in the CASE District VII Awards of Excellence. Three of the school’s projects won recognition in the competition, sponsored by the Western Region of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, which includes Arizona, California, Hawaii, Guam, Nevada and Utah.
The Awards of Excellence showcase best practices in alumni relations, fundraising, public/government relations, advancement services, special events and outstanding communications. Experts from all disciplines throughout the district judge the entries in more than 60 categories and select the gold, silver and bronze winners for each category.
This year, for the fourth consecutive year, the school’s Dean’s Report was recognized in regional or national CASE competitions for its high quality. The 2016-17 Dean’s Report, published last fall, won the Gold Award for Excellence in the Annual Magazine category.
Publications are judged by a panel of professionals on design, readability, budget and number of staff. The gold-medal issue, Engineering Solutions for Global Grand Challenges, featured 60 pages focused on Samueli School news, statistics, faculty, research and students. It was produced by the Samueli School Communications Department.
“We received more than 500 entries this year, and your excellent work stood out among the best,” judges said of the Dean’s Report. “One of our objectives is to share best practices among our colleagues, and your efforts will be recognized as an example for others to emulate. Thank you for producing the kind of work that brings respect to our profession.”
Also this year, a bronze medal was awarded in the Special Event/Single Day category for the Samueli School’s Winter Design Review. The event, held last March at the UC Irvine Student Center, began with a pancake breakfast for nearly 60 industry representatives and moved on to an exhibition of 138 projects designed and displayed by 838 undergraduate students. The event was attended by faculty, staff and more than 100 industry representatives.
Large-scale projects on display included an autonomous boat, three racecars, the HyperXite transportation pod and fuselage, virtual reality and drone courses, 3-D printing devices, flight simulators, airplane prototypes and more.
The day concluded with a quadcopter competition, where 38 teams demonstrated quadcopters they had designed and built. The devices could fly and autonomously detect locations and objects within a cage.
Winter Design Review was coordinated by the school’s event manager, Taylor Garrett.
Another 2018 CASE Award of Excellence winner was a video of the Samueli School HyperXite team, which earlier in the year had competed with 27 other teams from around the world at the Hyperloop Pod Competition at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. The six-minute video detailing the team’s efforts was created and produced by UCI videographer Steve Chang. It won a bronze award in the News and Research Videos category.
Campuswide, UCI won three additional awards, including a bronze in Fundraising Campaigns; a bronze in Public Relations, Media Relations and Community Relations Projects; and a silver award in the Fundraising Videos category.
CASE comprises eight districts in the U.S., Canada and some U.S. territories. Awards will be presented during the CASE District VII Connect West Conference, March 1-3, in San Francisco.
- Anna Lynn Spitzer
