The Maurice Prize
The Maurice Prize Competition is intended to foster innovation, creativity, originality, ingenuity, and resourcefulness among undergraduate students at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). This is an annual competition for a prize of $5,000, for which all undergraduates at UIC are eligible to compete, using their own creativity and innovation in solving a problem of importance to them, therefore deepening their breadth of knowledge about themselves and their abilities.
In selecting a project of their own desire, it is the intent of The Maurice Prize that student competitors will experience an additional educational benefit outside of their standard academic coursework. Additionally, students will plan and execute a strategy to address their chosen issues while applying their own knowledge, creative use of resources, and the ability to work with others to find solutions.
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- Competitors may be either individuals or teams of students, but all must be currently enrolled undergraduate students at UIC.
- Faculty and staff may serve only as resources and may not participate in the Competition.
- Projects are of the students’ own choosing and may include any endeavors or activities in which they are interested.
- While projects may be related to students’ areas of study, they shall be extra-curricular and shall not be subject to direction and/or evaluation for credit towards fulfillment of degree requirements. This structure applies to independent studies as well as to formal classes. No class projects or papers are eligible to win this prize.
- Individuals and teams may enter the Competition more than once if what they learned during an earlier Competition lets them develop their projects further. However, once a student has won The Maurice Prize, she/he shall not be eligible to enter the Competition again in future years.
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- The annual Competition is announced in late fall semester.
- Prospective applicants are asked to submit a statement of intent to participate, which is reviewed by an Evaluation Committee comprised of students, faculty, and staff.
- If accepted, applicants are asked to use the months of spring semester to develop their proposed project as fully as possible and to offer a presentation to the Committee on the project’s results.
- The winner(s) of the Competition are announced in early summer.
The Prize is administered by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, and the annual Prize coordination process is supported by Student Leadership and Civic Engagement