Hoos Making an Impact

Hoos Making an Impact

Staff members from across all of UVA's schools and units in the academic division have the opportunity to make a significant impact at UVA through the annual competition, “Hoos Making an Impact.” The competition is hosted by the Staff Senate in partnership with the President's Office to cultivate staff success across UVA Grounds in alignment with the University’s 2030 Strategic Plan.

Why participate?

Staff who win this annual competition will:

  • Receive $1,000 (if a team wins, the winnings will be divided equally between the team members)  
  • Help guide their ideas into implementation at UVA, supported by competition funds provided to a UVA office hosting their project
  • Join UVA leaders and Staff Senate co-chairs for a luncheon celebrating this year's winners
  • Be featured in UVA Today 

 

Theme for 2025-2026 Submissions

The 2025-2026 competition focused on supporting UVA’s affordability and cost control efforts and asked staff to address this theme by proposing an innovation that will sustain or improve the quality of a process or service while saving time and/or reducing expenses.

 

Competition Timeline

  • Submissions Due: Applications are accepted during the fall with specific dates announced each year.
  • Finalist Presentations: up to 10 finalists will be invited to presentation their ideas to the review panel in the winter 
  • Winners Announced: competition winners are announced in the spring 
  • Project Implementation: implementation of winning ideas often involves staff who submitted those ideas collaborating with one or more relevant offices at UVA over a period of months and periodically reporting back to Staff Senate on progress achieved

 

How Submissions Are Evaluated

  • Innovativeness: proposal drives progress, advances something new 
  • Connection to Key Initiative #5 of the UVA Strategic Plan (how the proposed idea cultivates staff success)
  • Savings of time or money the project will generate
  • Feasibility: simple, straightforward approach  
  • Impact: outcomes that are measurable, lasting, and/or scalable across UVA 

 

Competition History

The Hoos Making an Impact competition has a specific area of focus for submissions to address in some years. In other years, the competition is more open-ended and submissions propose a broader range of impacts. For the 2025-2026 year, the competition focused on innovations that will sustain or improve the quality of a process or service while saving time and/or reducing expenses. 

Some winning proposals from past years have moved through the implementation process and are now part of the workplace at UVA. Other winning proposals are still in progress, including thoughtful collaborations to integrate those proposals with related strategic efforts led by relevant offices at UVA. 

We recommend reviewing summaries of past winners’ proposals as a way to familiarize yourself with the kinds of ideas that have been identified as timely innovations in recent years. 

View Previous Winners

 

Preparing to Submit

In getting ready to submit an idea for the Hoos Making an Impact competition, please prepare to respond to these prompts on the submission form:

  • Short Title for Your Submission
  • UVA Process or Service You Propose to Improve (in a few words)
  • Brief Summary of the Innovation You Propose
  • How will your idea help "Cultivate Staff Success" (Key Initiative #5 of UVA's 2030 Strategic Plan)?
  • What savings of time or money will your idea generate?
  • What steps would need to be taken to implement this idea?
  • Who are the key stakeholders that would need to be involved to help implement your idea?
  • Estimated Timeline for Implementation
  • What is the estimated budget required to implement your idea?
  • Further information (space, if needed, to further describe the expected impact or other details that should be considered with your proposal)

 

How Ideas Are Selected

Judging is conducted in these three rounds:

  • First Round
    • All entries will be evaluated and up to 50 finalists will be selected to go into the second round of judging.
    • This round will be judged by the Staff Senate Executive Committee.
  • Second Round
    • The top 50 entries will be reevaluated and narrowed down to the top 10 submissions.
    • This round will be judged by:
      • Designees from the following offices: President; Chief Operating Officer; Provost; and other relevant areas
      • Staff Senate Co-Chairs
  • Final Round
    • Up to 10 finalists will present their idea to the review panel who will then meet to discuss each presentation/defense and select one to three winners.
    • This round will be judged by:
      • Designees from the following offices: President; Chief Operating Officer; Provost; and other relevant areas
      • Staff Senate Co-Chairs