By Daniel Shapiro / Jambar Contributor
Youngstown State University students voted for their favorite campus spots and resources, prompting new winners for the second annual Penny Awards on April 11.
The Penny Awards, a project of YSU’s social media team, highlighted some of the best resources on campus and students voted for their favorite nominee in each category.
There were nominees across five different categories in this year’s awards. The winners of each award are as follows:
Best Campus Event: Federal Frenzy
Best Student Support Service: Penguin Service Center
Best College Social Media: Dr. Dominic A. and Helen M. Bitonte College of Health and Human Services
Best Campus Apartment: University Courtyards
Prettiest Place on Campus: Daniel H. Becker Family Fountain Commons
Each award winner earned a 3D-printed trophy created by YSU students in the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Katie Buttar, senior marketing major and social media assistant at YSU, is the student behind the beginning of the awards. She said it’s aimed to recognize the top resources on campus that YSU offers.
“[It’s to] bring awareness to everything on campus that supports our students, so not just you know, dining, but also our support services for our students,” Buttar said.
Buttar works alongside Garrett Sah, social media and communications coordinator at YSU and organizer of the Penny Awards. Buttar discussed why the team named the awards after the second school mascot, Penny the Penguin.
“Well, we were originally going to do the Pete Awards, but the Penny Awards had a better ring to it,” Buttar said.
The Penny Awards also gives students a chance to interact and vote on what parts of campus they like the most.
“It’s also kind of giving the students or even the broader audience of YSU as a whole to get the chance to kind of have their voice where they can say which of these categories were their favorite out of the different choices,” Sah said.
While there was no exact theme for this year’s awards, Buttar said they wanted to change some of the awards from last year.
“We decide to do different categories every year, so I think last year we had ones like best campus dining, best coffee spot, things like that,” Buttar said. “We wanted to switch it up a little bit [this year], just kind of things on campus that people enjoy.”
Sah said the social media team chose the different nominees for each award as a whole during a group meeting.
“We sat together in a big group meeting with the rest of the social media [team, and we wanted] to hear from them what they thought were going to gain the most traction from the audience,” Sah said.
Sah also said the social media team brainstormed which resources YSU students cared about most this school year.
“We bounced ideas back and forth and tried to figure out what students would care about the most, what they would want to see be recognized the most, so that’s how we picked [the awards],” Sah said.
The voting took place on YSU’s Instagram and Facebook accounts, and users had 48 hours to comment who they wanted to win each award.
