More than 400 Binghamton University students gathered in the Anderson Center’s Chamber Hall Thursday night for the 11th annual XCELsior Awards, a ceremony that recognizes excellence and leadership in Student Association-charted and greek-affiliated student organizations on campus.

At this ceremony, the Center for Excellence in Student Leadership issues 24 awards for such distinctions as outstanding community service, fundraising efforts and educational programs.

A slideshow was presented before the ceremony, which contained pictures submitted from some of BU’s 89 participating organizations, such as Kappa Phi Lambda’s car wash fundraiser.

“With some organizations, you’re not really sure about what they do, you just hear about them,” said Lamara Burgess, vice president of X-Fact’r, BU’s step team. “It’s nice to see their events.”

Maryam Belly, SA vice president for multicultural affairs, won the Paul J. Battaglia Memorial Award for student leadership.

“In order for me to be an outstanding student leader, I had to have outstanding students to work with,” she said after receiving the award.

SUNY Kids, an organization that takes foster children and other troubled Binghamton youth for leisure activities each Saturday, won the award for Outstanding Community Service.

“This semester we’ve taken kids ice skating, bowling, to Chuck E. Cheese’s,” Christine Caldero, president of SUNY Kids, said.

Sudhara Bajrachangra, Harpur’s Ferry member and Pipe Dream photographer, won the award for Outstanding Emerging Leader for, among other activities, a 23-page manual which he wrote for new ambulance drivers.

“It took me four months to write,” he said.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon won the award for Outstanding Greek Chapter for their efforts to bring scholarships to the chapter, community service work with the Urban League of Broome County and having the second highest GPA in the Interfraternity Council.

Unlike previous ceremonies, the category section of each award, which could result in many winners, was removed for an honorable mention section.

In the past, for awards such as Student Organization Leader of the Year, 11 winners were chosen, ranging from categories such as business to culture.

With the new system, only one winner is selected per award, with three honorable mentions from any category.

These changes were made to reduce the length of the ceremony and increase the prestige of each award.

XCEL added more candidates in a few awards, such as Outstanding Media Effort of the Year, where Rainbow Pride Union’s Q Magazine and Asian Student Union’s Asian Outlook were added as candidates.

“We opened it up to more groups so the award would encompass any organization and not just media organizations,” said Scott Rheinheimer, XCEL graduate assistant and event organizer.

Winners of awards are determined from five judging groups which consist of three to four student affairs professionals, faculty masters, XCEL leadership consultants, SA executive board members or other students.

“We wanted to get a diverse and well-rounded collection of people [for each group],” Rheinheimer said.

Each group member reads through award nomination forms and essays prior to a meeting where they would then come to a general consensus over winners. Rheinheimer believes this new judging style made groups focus more closely on their selections, where some awards had up to 30 nominations.

“In the past it was just a ballot where the majority wins,” he said. “This way we felt there would be more of a [critical] discussion about the candidates.”

Before becoming judges, members had to agree to remove all outside biases in their decision-making behavior.

“We didn’t have any conflicts [of interest] this year,” Rheinheimer said.