Exercise is Medicine® On Campus (EIM-OC) named North Carolina Wesleyan University as the 2020 Mascot Challenge champion and Rutgers University as this year's Fan Favorite.
Launched in October 2017, the EIM-OC Mascot Challenge celebrates EIM On Campus Month. Each registered campus is invited to submit a 90-second creative video of its mascot demonstrating campus efforts to activate the vision of EIM and increase physical activity among students, faculty and staff. This year, 32 campuses submitted entries.
The videos were judged by a panel of five Exercise is Medicine Committee members and were scored on several aspects, including clear communication of the EIM-OC mission, originality, production quality and overall entertainment value.
As the winner, North Carolina Wesleyan University will be awarded a $1,000 grant to be used toward the development of an EIM-OC event or program on campus.
Runners-up in the judging will also receive monetary awards. The judging panel awarded second place to Biola University and third place to Shenandoah University.
In addition to the panel of judges, all 32 videos were eligible for the Fan Favorite award. The winner was determined through a voting system on YouTube, where all videos were uploaded into a single playlist on the American College of Sports Medicine channel.
The winner of the Fan Favorite award, with more than 1,000 votes, was Rutgers University. In second place was The University of Akron, and Shenandoah University was named the third-place winner. All three schools will also be awarded small grants for their EIM-OC programs.
All 32 video submissions are available for viewing on YouTube.