And the Winner Is…

Announcing the Winners of the Second Annual Student-Led Project Access Competition

When our PAEA Admissions Team set out to host the second annual student-led Project Access Competition, our goals were to increase PA program participation, help students build more thoughtful, creative, and sustainable events, and spread age-appropriate knowledge about the PA profession to young minds all over the country. We put out the call, and our student leaders answered.

This year, we had 32 teams register for the competition and the level of innovation and planning shown across every submitted project plan was amazing. We decided to incorporate faculty from three developing PA programs that have not admitted students yet to serve as our judges. These faculty members submitted their scores after reviewing all materials based on the criteria of impact/sustainability, creativity, clarity of expression, originality, engagement, and project plan completion. We are happy to announce our winners below:

1^st Place: Wake Forest University PA Program

• Winners will receive the Champions Belt from the 2021 Champs (Ithaca College PA Program), a commemorative plaque, and a chance to defend their title next year!

2^nd Place: Mary Baldwin University (Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences)

• Winners will receive a crystal trophy and bragging rights!

3^rd Place TIE: University of Texas Rio Grande Valley & University of Washington – MEDEX, Seattle

• Winners will receive a crystal trophy and bragging rights!

We would like to congratulate our winners and thank every program that participated. We would also like to thank the faculty champions that supported and mentored their students throughout this competition.

As your students carry out their Project Access events, make sure to submit any photographs or media via our photo submission form so we can share the amazing work that PA faculty and students are doing to expand access and diversity within our profession. We can’t wait to see all your projects come to fruition.

Remember to check in on PAEA’s Project Access Webpage to see updated competition details, photos from Project Access events happening all over the country, and to learn about new additions to the Project Access Toolkit.

Let’s see if Wake Forest can hold on to their title in next year’s competition!