Written by Habibah Abass
In light of student concerns over recent changes made to Northwestern University in Qatar’s Media Awards—now known as the NU-Q Media and Research Awards— the organizing committee has decided to increase the number of categories in order to better accommodate different types of student work.
When the initial changes were first announced, students raised concerns about the reduction in the number of categories from 17 to eight, which would result in different kinds of student work competing in the same category.
Now three new categories have been added: the creative writing category has been split into separate categories for prose/poetry and scriptwriting, and a new category has been added for independent visual works that were not created or submitted for academic credit, such as work created for publication by professional organizations. This also means that independent projects that were awarded a substantial grant from the NU-Q Studio 20Q organization will not be competing against student work produced for a class.
The deadline has been extended to 5:00pm on Sunday, February 7, to give students the opportunity to submit their work to these new categories.
Many students seem satisfied with these changes and that their voices were heard.
“I am happy that we got to sit with the staff and discuss the proposed changes,” said Shahnawaz Zali, a communication senior at NU-Q. “In my opinion, it is necessary to take into consideration what the students want as opposed to what the faculty/staff thinks should be done,” he added.
The changes were made partly due to the efforts of the university’s student union.
“NU-Q Student Union supported the students who wanted to make the changes,” said Najla S. Al-Khulaifi, president of NUQSU. “We also met with the committee in charge of creating the new list for the Media and Research Awards. We stood in full support of the students and did our best to work with faculty and staff to create the changes,” she added.
Some students, however, are still unsatisfied with the changes made to the awards ceremony. “I’m not super pleased, but it is something. They made no changes to the journalism awards, even though a feature news and a hard news story cannot be judged similarly,” said Neha Rashid, journalism sophomore at NU-Q.
Other students are glad that a compromise was made. “The fact that they made any changes at all just goes to show how much our opinions matter and that we can actually make a change,” said Zaki Hussain, a communication sophomore.
Al-Khulaifi said these changes were a step in the right direction for NU-Q students and the student union.
“The changes that were made mean the students of NU-Q have a say in what happens in NU-Q. We hope this is an example of how we can work together as students along with faculty and staff to change anything that might be of concern,” she said. “The changes that were made mean our voices were heard, our say was put into consideration and that we as a group are an integral part of the community.”
