Essay Criteria:

• Essays are limited to a maximum of 500 words.
• Describe a faculty member, staff member, or administrator at a current NISOD-member college who encouraged you to complete a course, finish a semester, or graduate from college, and describe how that encouragement helped you reach your goal.
• Essays must be non-fiction and any essay that does not address the contest topic will not be considered.
• Submissions will be judged on style, content, grammar, originality, clarity, conciseness, articulation, and organization.

Student Author and Featured Employee Criteria:

• Student author must be currently enrolled at a NISOD-member college through the Spring 2026 semester.
• The faculty, staff, or administrator featured in the essay must be currently employed at the same NISOD-member college as the student authors enrollment and remain so through the Spring 2026 semester.

Submission Terms:

• Essays must be submitted via the online form on NISOD’s website. Email, fax, and mail submissions will not be accepted.
• NISOD is not responsible for late, incomplete, or misdirected submissions.
• Upon submission, the student author represents and warrant that their essay is his or her own original creation and that it does not violate or infringe the rights, including, without limitation, copyrights, trademark rights or rights of publicity/privacy, of any other party.
• Immediately upon submission, essays become the property of NISOD.
• By entering the contest, student authors, featured faculty members, staff members, and administrators, and presidents of the student authors’ colleges, grant NISOD the right to edit, publish, copy, display, and otherwise use their essays, as well as their names, likenesses, and biographical information in advertising and promotional materials, without further compensation or permission, except where prohibited by law.
• Submission constitutes authorization for NISOD to use the essays for research and grant purposes.

Selection and Prize Terms:

• The winning students, featured employees, and winning students’ presidents will be notified via email by March 13, 2026 and must respond by March 20, 2026 or selection will be forfeited.
• Student authors must not have won a previous Student Essay Contest.
• The winning students, featured employees, and winning students’ presidents must submit requested materials, such as photos, by the communicated deadlines.
• The student and the faculty, staff member, or administrator written about in the essay must be able to travel to Austin to participate in the Student Essay Contest presentation held during NISOD’s 2026 Annual Conference. (Prize includes travel reimbursement up to $400 and three nights lodging.)