2020 Lindy Awards expand categories to increase student participation

The annual Lindy Awards for Lindenwood’s School of Arts, Media and Communications is being organized and guided by new, temporary leadership in 2020.

The Lindy Awards, historically, celebrates the achievements of the Communications department at Lindenwood and local high schools in the area. But, this year, there are new categories added which include fashion, dance, and game design.

Peter Carlos, a professor of Cinema Arts, is the usual organizer for the Lindys. But, since he’s on sabbatical for a year, professors Andrew Millians and Ben Scholle have acquired responsibility for the 2020 Lindy Awards.

Things to know:

• Lindy submissions are judged by outside, professional sources so there isn’t any bias from professors or students.
• Lindenwood students can submit material in any category, it doesn’t have to be a category in the student’s major.
• This year, there are 54 awards to be distributed, which is 13 more than last year.
• Students are encouraged to submit multiple pieces of work in different categories, if applicable.
• The submission deadline for the Lindys is Friday, March 20.

Because Millians and Scholle are only interims until Carlos is back, they don’t plan on making any huge changes.  But they are changing some things in an effort to get more students to be involved.

Millians, an associate professor of Cinema Arts, said the inclusion of the new categories is intended to have more people submit work for awards. 

“There seems to be a lot of humor that derives from one person and only one person being up for an award,” Millians said. “Professor Carlos is trying to do this all the time, but [we want to] try to expand the reach of the award category to get more people involved.”

Another way the team is trying to get more students involved is by using social media as a means to market the event, which they had not done in the past. The Lindys’ Instagram page is @LindyAwards.

“I don’t like Instagram, but I think the reality is [Instagram] is what people are using now,” Millians said. “The use of Instagram is to reach more people, and Instagram has a relevant, intended audience.”

Not only does the Lindy Awards celebrate the achievements of current and former students, but it also celebrates the achievements of high school students, or as Millians sees them, prospective students.

“One of the goals of [the Lindys] is to get prospective students onto campus,” Millians said. “My student worker is sending out like 30 emails to teachers and…DECA clubs in the area.”

 Millians said that even across the Missouri River, in St. Louis County, there are people who are not aware of Lindenwood. So, by bringing students to campus, it turns Lindenwood from a “hypothetical” into a concrete university for them.

The 2020 Lindy Awards take place at 7 p.m. on April 23 in the Lindenwood Theater located in the J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts.

Students can submit their work here. Any questions students have regarding this year’s Lindy Awards can be directed to [email protected].