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2002 PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS PROGRAM

NATIONAL RECOGNITION WEEK

June 22 - June 27, 2002 Washington, DCNational Recognition Week is Sponsored by:

The General Motors Corporation GMAC Financial Services The Merck Company Foundation

the presidential scholars programthrough thirty-nine years...

2002 PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS PROGRAM2

he United States Presidential Scholars Program was established in 1964, by Executive Order of thePresident, to recognize and honor some of our Nation’s most distinguished graduating high schoolseniors. Each year, up to 141 students are named as Presidential Scholars, one of the Nation’s high-est honors for high school students. In honoring the Presidential Scholars, the President of the Unit-ed States symbolically honors all graduating high school seniors of high potential.From President Lyndon Baines Johnson to George W. Bush, the Presidential Scholars Program hashonored more than 5,000 of our nation’s most distinguished graduating high school seniors. Initiat-ed by President Johnson, the Presidential Scholars Program annually selects one male and one femalestudent from each state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Americans living abroad, 15 at-largestudents, and up to 20 students in the arts on the basis of outstanding scholarship, service, leadershipand creativity through a rigorous selection and review process administered by the U.S. Departmentof Education.President Johnson opened the first meeting of the White House Commission on Presidential Schol-ars by stating that the Program was not just a reward for excellence, but a means of nourishing excel-lence. The Program was intended to stimulate achievement in a way that could be “revolutionary.”During the first National Recognition Week in 1964, the Scholars participated in seminars with Sec-retary of State Dan Rusk, Astronaut Alan B. Sheppard, and Chief Justice Earl Warren. President Johnson challenged the Scholars to give their talents and time “in our land and in all lands to clean-ing away the blight, to sweeping away the shoddiness, to wiping away the injustices and inequities of the past so that all men may live together in a great world community of decency and excellence.”

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Over the next decade, several changes occurred in the Presidential Scholars Program. In 1969, the medalliondesign became the Great Seal of the Nation. In 1972, the National Teacher of the Year was invited to becomea Commissioner. Alumni Scholars were invited to serve as Advisors to the program. A booklet of Scholars’essays on issues facing the nation was issued by the Joint Commission on Arrangements for the Bicentennialin 1976.In 1979, President Carter expanded the program to honor up to 20 students selected by the Commissionthrough an artistic competition. In 1980, a compendium of Scholars’ essays, poems, and musical compositions was published, following a performance by the Scholars in the National Academy of Sciences’ auditorium.In the 1980s the selection process was refined to emphasize the key elements of leadership and community service. The Horace Mann Learning Center produced a collection of Scholars’ essays on ways to improve thenation’s education system.In 1981, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts was created and its Arts Recognition and Tal-ent Search program began to conduct the annual artistic competition. In 1983, the Distinguished Teacherawards were created, and the twentieth year celebration of the program included an Alumni reunion and a per-formance by the Scholars at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.In 1994, The American Association for Gifted Children published its second working paper, “The Presiden-tial Scholars: A Portrait of Talent and its Development.” The theme that emerged from the study suggestedthat the talents of these Presidential Scholars came forth in part because of the encouragement of teachers andparents and in part because their experiences built upon, rather than impeded, their abilities.In 1998, the Distinguished Teacher award was renamed the Presidential Scholars Program Teacher Recogni-tion Award to serve as a means for rewarding good teachers for knowledge, skill, and performance. The awardsymbolizes the steps that schools, communities, parents, students, teachers, and the U.S. Department of Edu-cation are taking to improve teaching and learning in schools across America.

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