Walking into administration offices at any given school and seeing dusty trophy cases crammed full of trophies from the 1980s alongside the win of just last week at the debate tournament can almost tell a story. For many American schools, this has created the problem that for student achievements over decades, there have just been too many awards and not enough space to display them properly. But it’s not just a case of space: how do you honor past achievements while enabling present recognition without an overdose of visual chaos?
Growing Pains of Success
Every successful school has to deal with the problem of accumulation sooner or later. Academic contests, sporting events, art festivals, community service recognitions, and student leadership awards are piled yearly onto trophy cases. Starting with perhaps a single electronic trophy case in a principal’s office, it soon expands to displays in hallways, on class shelves, and in storage rooms to be forgotten.
When this problem intensifies, it really presents a problem. A tiny elementary school may barely require more than a couple of display cases, but throw middle school grades into the picture or larger enrollments, and the collections of awards will just explode. Out of the blue, administrators catch themselves pondering hard: Which awards are worthy of capital placement? How do we pay homage to earlier accomplishments but also slot recent ones up? And perhaps worse yet, how do we stop this school from looking like a junkyard with awards?
Forming a Strategic Display Philosophy
The solution—well, opens with an infusion of a clear philosophy around what you would want your displays to accomplish. Inspiring current students? Impressing visitors? Chronicling the history of the school? Most likely, the answer to all of those is “yes.” However, pinpointing specific goals will definitely inform your decisions.
Try a tiered system whereby awards are categorized according to importance and last occurrence of receipt. Bringing permanent display rights would be major state championships, national level recognitions, landmark achievements, and so forth. Regional and local awards would come in the rotation every season or annually, so that it gives your local big accomplishments a lot of view and allows plenty of room for the new ones.
Some schools accomplish a lot by rotating by theme as well: athletic accomplishments get spotlighted during basketball season, and academic honors go on display for visiting prospective families. This way, displays and their surrounding spaces remain relevant and impactful.
Digital Alternatives
Technology offers an attractive solution to physical space problems. Keeping their awards hidden away for eternity is an impossible task for an interactive digital trophy case that can operate within an inch of bare wall space. Achievements can be perused at will, by any type of visitor—parent, student, and so on.
Aside from solving the preservation problem, digital displays give life to the nagging dilemma of awards fading or wearing out. Ribbons fade away to oblivion, plaques record traces of grime and trophies blacks with dust, and meanwhile, digital displays remain fresh forever. Schools can also embed actual pictures from the awarding ceremony and relevant details of achievements clients could never think of attaching to any physical award.
Probably most satisfactory of all, many schools have found that students engage with digital displays more than the stagnant trophies. Interactive screens invite an exploration that glass-fronted cases can’t, while being able to search and filter is appreciated by generations of tech bothersome.
Repurposing and Redistribution
Not every award will require a home at the school forever. Working with local history groups, alumni associations, and community centers that would be happy to accept donations of the older awards might be worth investigating. This obviously honors the awards but, again, opens up some room for new ones.
Some schools have “traveling trophy” schemes, whereby major awards go to classrooms, department offices, or student homes for periods of time before being returned to central storage.
They can begin repurposing some of their award elements into fresh displays: trophy toppers into art projects; plaques into historical timelines; ribbons into accents for bulletin boards that will celebrate new achievements.
Storage Arrangements That Celebrate Origin
Thoughtful storage is a way to honor awards that simply cannot be displayed or donated. Create an archive capable of gaining climate control, cataloged properly, and with systems in place that make retrieval easy. Take pictures and research the details of each award before placing them in storage; that way, even if the actual trophy or plaque disappears one day, or is lost in some discount bin, the story of that achievement will live on.
Consider designating areas for historical displays that are subject to change. A permanent case with rotating exhibitions keeps the school engaged in its own history and provides a platform for celebrating present-day achievement.
Building the Community Around Achievement
The purpose the awards serve leads toward a good cause: to give meaning to managing awards. The displays should be maintained with meaning to activate any motivational splash of recognition. A cluttered display with dim outdated recognition hardly makes the achievements appear worthy of acknowledgment or imbues new awards with a feeling of importance.
When helping set up a juror, the students get involved in the process. Student government or an honor society can help decide which awards to display and rotate and how to tell the story behind the awards. This ensures that the displays remain relevant and meaningful to students in their own time.
When the community supports meaningful recognition for achievements instead of just accumulating trophies, there is a great chance to thrive. Through the management of several decades of trophies, schools will give honor to their presence with history and make some space for achievements in the future. The secret would be to shift away from thinking about trophy management as storage and start considering how to curate displays that inspire, celebrate, and reciprocate the rich present-day history of excellence at the school.