Two Iowa State student leaders and the head of the English Department have been honored as critics of the year by the Committee on the State of Iowa State University.

Earlier this week, the committee announced the recipients of its seventh annual Don Biggs Constructive Critics of the Year Award.

This year the committee recognized Black Student Alliance President Kyle Pierce and Iowa State Daily Editor in Chief Troy McCullough for their achievements during the year, and retiring head of the English department, Dale Ross, for his career accomplishments.

The process of selecting the recipients for the award is an ongoing process, said Bruce Smith, a member of the selection committee. He said that the group is always on the lookout for people and actions that exemplify the spirit of the award.

“We try to select those individuals who speak out publicly in a constructive way to criticize the university,” said selection committee member and journalism professor emeritus Bill Kunerth.

This year’s winners clearly exemplified this attitude, he said.

Pierce is being honored for his work with the BSA and others for “responsibly challenging the university’s handling of its minority affairs program and the naming of Catt Hall — even though our committee does not endorse changing the name of Catt Hall,” Smith said in a prepared statement.

McCullough was awarded for his work with the Daily and specifically for the way that he has dealt with a dispute with the organization’s publication board, he said.

McCullough is being honored for “defending free expression over the objections of his own board of publications,” Smith said.

Ross was honored for “astute criticism of the operation of the university over many years while performing at a high level as a teacher and academic administrator,” he said.

Over the past several years the winners have included faculty, students, administration officials, labor union leaders, Government of the Student Body leaders and people such as former state representative Ralph Rosenberg, Kunerth said.

In the end it seems that the results are satisfactory even if they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the committee. Smith said there have been very few times when the group has totally agreed with the winners’ opinions.

“Every year we make very good selections. I am always very proud of our selections,” Smith said. “We don’t always agree with their point of view, but we feel that their criticism is good for the university.”

Kunerth said he is concerned about one current trend he hopes the award can help reverse.

“We are concerned over the decrease in robust dialogue. We try to encourage constructive criticism,” Kunerth said. “We hope this will encourage more people at all levels on campus to be more forthright.”

The award is named for Don Biggs, a geology professor at ISU for 30 years and the founder of the Committee on the State of Iowa State University.