Annual Awards Program

NCEMSF recognizes outstanding efforts made by individuals and organizations through our awards program. Instituted in 1997, the program currently has seven different awards. Follow the links below for the applications for each award.

• Collegiate EMS Week Celebration of the Year
  Held annually the second full week in November, Collegiate EMS Week is a week-long recognition and celebration of campus based EMS and provides an annual opportunity for campus-based EMS organizations to highlight their activities and educate their communities. National Collegiate CPR Day kicks off Collegiate EMS Week each year and is designed to educate as many college students as possible in the basic principles of CPR on a single day. NCEMSF receives reports of creative activities celebrating the week, but wants to hear more. Share what your group did to celebrate Campus EMS Week and your organization could win bragging rights. There is no faking it; verifiable documentation of what your group did to honor this special week is needed. Send your press releases, news articles, pictures, public service announcements, and other related materials. Submissions are judged on the basis of activity creativity, appropriateness, and positive exposure generated.
• Collegiate EMS Video of the Year
  Collegiate EMS Video of the Year acknowledges the video that best embodies the spirit of collegiate EMS and the NCEMSF mission. The rules are simple: The video must be wholly created by members of a campus-based EMS organization. The content of the video must embody the goals, traditions, and spirit of collegiate EMS. Embarrassing, unsafe, indecent and illegal content is prohibited. The video should be no longer than three minutes including intro/pre-roll and credits. Only one entry is allowed per campus EMS organization per year. The video should be DVD quality or higher and should not require special codecs to play. Videos will be featured during annual conference activities. To submit a video, provide a link to a high-resolution copy available for download or online viewing.
• Collegiate EMS Community Engagement Program of the Year 
  This award recognizes efforts by the campus EMS group who had the most creative, effective, and/or innovative program or initiative for engaging with their community. The activity can encompass a variety of outreach methods, including social media, PSAs, websites, or other activities. Judging will be based on the creativity of the messaging, production quality, accuracy of information, and relevance of the topic area to collegiate EMS. For the nomination, please include the following in a single PDF file:
  • Link(s) to the applicable web content, or attachments of copies of non-web content.
  • Information on the effectiveness of the campaign, if available. This can include statistics from social media, websites, or videos. It can also include practical outcomes (for example, in a campaign to register people for emergency alerts, the increase in alert subscribers after the campaign).
  • A written self-evaluation of the campaign, to include strengths, weaknesses, lessons learned, and specific actions to take with future campaigns to improve them.
• Collegiate EMS Advisor of the Year
  This award honors a faculty advisor, college administrator or medical director who has contributed significantly to the success of campus-based EMS providers and their organizations. Recipients excel at mentoring student collegiate EMS members and dedicate extraordinary time and energy to educating and providing all types of support.
• Collegiate EMS Provider of the Year
  Nominations for Collegiate EMS provider of the Year awards are accepted in two categories: Collegiate EMS Organization Leadership and Heroism and Valor. Please note the category in your awards submission.
  • Criteria for nominations for the Collegiate EMS Organization Leadership category include: documented outstanding leadership to a campus-based EMS organization such as through assuming a leadership position, planning and carrying out significant projects for the benefit of the campus (i.e. safety and health promotion and education projects, campus EMS organizational development projects, public relations, etc.) and significantly contributing to the success of the organization. Leadership in and service to other campus and community organizations can be considered, but are secondary to service to the campus EMS organization. Service should be exemplary and well beyond the scope of routine duty. Letters of recommendation and support from academic deans, campus administrators, EMS medical directors, and EMS organization advisors should be included. All nomination letters should be merged into a single PDF file.
  • Criteria for nominations for the Collegiate EMS Heroism and Valor category include documented evidence of singular acts of heroism and valor in the line of duty as a campus EMS provider. The award is not made for acts resulting in saving a life or lives, but to individuals for acts of heroism, resourcefulness, and skill in saving or attempting to save a life at great personal risk to their own. Copies of newspaper clippings and certified transcripts of media accounts should be included. Letters from police chiefs, fire chiefs, hospital officials, and campus officials attesting to the acts of heroism and valor should also be included. All nomination letters should be merged into a single PDF file.
• Collegiate EMS Organization of the Year
  This award recognizes an EMS organization that has demonstrated outstanding service to its campus. This award is frequently a result of marked improvements in staffing, equipment, or level of service provided. Commonly, these groups hold the NCEMSF Striving for Excellence verification. This award can be self-nominated from within the group, or can be the result of an NCEMSF officer's experience interacting with a particular group (especially during a site visit or outreach program). Either way, as with all NCEMSF awards, supporting documentation and references are needed from the school's administration (advisor, dean, or other school official).
• George J. Koenig, Jr. DO Service Award
  No formal application exists for this award, which is selected by the NCEMSF Board President.

The NCEMSF awards committee reviews all nominations. Awards are presented each February during the Annual National Conference. Nominations received by the Friday three weeks prior to the start of the conference will be considered for that year’s award. 

Submissions in the EMS Week, Video, and Community Engagement categories at times may overlap. The NCEMSF Board reserves the right to take a submission made under this one of these categories and recognize it under one of the other two categories if the Board decides that one of the other two categories is more appropriate, or if moving the submission to one of the other categories would offer a better opportunity for the submission to receive recognition. 

For organizational awards, only groups whose Institutional Dues are current will be eligible for selection. For individual awards, the recipient must be a paid Personal Member of the Foundation (personal membership is granted to all Conference attendees, so if the recipient is attending the Conference then they meet the dues requirement). All awards should be submitted using the links above. For awards that require nominations/letters of recommendation, ensure that all letters make the case for the nominee and highlight unique attributes that distinguish the nominee and convince the committee. If multiple letters are submitted, they should be combined into a single PDF, along with any appropriate supporting documentation. Please coordinate submissions for a single individual/organization so that all items are submitted as one comprehensive nomination. The quality of any one submission is more important than the quantity of letters received, especially if multiple letters all come from a similar source or share the same perspective. An organization may submit and win multiple awards. Self-nominating is permitted; however, supporting documentation is required. Submitted materials may be featured in future NCEMSF published media. No submissions will be accepted via postal mail. 

Questions on the award criteria may be directed to awards@ncemsf.org.

In addition to the above awards, NCEMSF also recognizes individual and group achievement through several Conference activities. These include:

• The Richard W. Vomacka Student Speaker Competition
• The Collegiate EMS Research Poster of the Year 
• Annual NCEMSF Skills Classic.

Application details and deadlines for these recognitions can be found in the annual Conference webpages.

NCEMSF recognizes five-year milestone anniversaries starting with ten years of service; no application is necessary, but please verify that your organization's founding date is correct in our Institutional Database to ensure you are properly recognized. Finally, NCEMSF recognizes members of Collegiate EMS squads who participate in Cardiac Arrest Saves.

Past award winners can be viewed in our Awards Hall-of-Fame.

You may also be interested in NCEMSF's self-evaluative programs. To apply for these recognitions, please use the email address and submission format information listed on each program's page. 

• MERIT Recognition Program
  The National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation MERIT (Modeling Excellence in Response, Innovation, and Training) Recognition Program is designed to recognize collegiate EMS organizations that adhere to the highest standards of operational excellence, clinical care, training, safety, and community engagement. This program provides a structured framework for self-assessment, continuous improvement, and recognition of exceptional performance in campus-based EMS. The MERIT-Recognized CBEMS Agency designation is not a certification, but a mark of distinction for collegiate EMS agencies that meet or exceed the stringent criteria set forth by NCEMSF. Please note only CBEMS agencies that provide patient care are eligible for recognition—this program is not designed for education-only groups.
• HEARTSafe Campus
  The National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation (NCEMSF) encourages and promotes community awareness of the potential for saving the lives of sudden cardiac arrest victims through the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and increased public access to defibrillation. In order to increase this awareness, NCEMSF, with support from HEARTSAFE Communities, the American Heart Association, The Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation and industry partners, has developed an initiative to designate college communities as “HEARTSafe Campuses.” NCEMSF affirms that the cornerstone of any HEARTSafe Campus is a vibrant campus-based emergency medical response organization.

• EMS Ready Campus
  The National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation EMS Ready Campus program is designed to recognize excellence in emergency management and disaster preparedness of collegiate EMS organizations.  Additionally, the program provides a framework for the enhancement of emergency management education, overall campus preparedness, and response capabilities for the applicant organization. Organizations will have the opportunity to receive recognition through a combination of self-evaluation, dynamic interaction with NCEMSF staff, and by completing a group of prescribed tasks.

The Striving for Excellence in Campus EMS recognition program is no longer offered. The program used an institutional self-evaluation using the NCEMSF Striving for Excellence Packet. NCEMSF verified the information submitted in the packet and presented organizations successfully meeting the standards outlined with this validation. The program has been replaced with the MERIT Recognition (above).