Patrick Calderon receiving his President of the Year award with the name of the UH NRHH chapter in place of his on the certificate. | Courtesy of Donna Keeya
The National Residence Hall Honorary chapter at UH received coveted awards from regional and national conferences this past academic year.
President of NRHH biomedical engineering junior Patrick Calderon won two awards himself, the Diamond Values award and NRHH President of the Year award.
The Diamond Values award is presented to an NRHH member in their own specific region, Calderon said, UH’s being the Southwest Affiliate of Colleges and Universities in Residential Housing, by the NRHH Advisor who exemplifies and embodies the values of NRHH.
When winning the Diamond Values award, Calderon was surprised as an NRHH advisor Eric Johnson presented the award to him because he didn’t think he would win anything, but afterwards he felt ecstatic, he said.
In the southwest region, there was one other person in the running for president of the year besides Calderon.
“I was nervous when I had to review the other contender’s bid, because it had information that made me question if I was a good enough president,” Calderon said. “Being called president of the year consistently does raise my confidence however.”
A large part of seeing who receives these NRHH awards is the bidding process, which Calderon describes as creating an infographic about the person and highlighting the things they have done throughout the year.
During the fall and spring semester, NRHH can submit bids for awards members can receive, and during the regional conferences in 2019-2020, four awards were won for UH’s NRHH.
The awards being president of the year, outstanding member of the year, building block of the year and outstanding chapter of the year.
Calderon said the executive who spoke before him discussed on-campus accomplishments with NRHH, but did not talk on doing things regionally or nationally.
“Our NRHH’s chapter in UH’s performance is quite active honestly,” Calderon said. “This year, I planned on educating the members on what we do on a regional and national level and plan to do more activities with other chapters in the future.”
