Presenter Jack Lemmon called each Student Film Award winner by phone at the first presentation ceremony in 1973. Only Lewis Hall of UCLA, who won with "Anti-Matter" in the animation category, was present.

At the Academy's Short Films Branch Executive Committee meeting on September 26, 1972, Herbert Klynn introduced a proposal for a separate recognition for student films. The committee strongly believed that the Academy would further achieve its purpose of advancing the arts and sciences of motion pictures through educational activities if a program were begun to stimulate and encourage excellence in filmmaking by university students.

The concept of a student film awards program was recommended to the Academy's Board of Governors which formed an Ad Hoc Committee to define the Student Film Awards. This committee presented its recommendations to the Short Films Branch Executive Committee on July 9, 1973. A draft for rules for the first national competition were presented to the Academy's Board of Governors and approved on September 4, 1973.

The announcement of the first Student Film Award winners took place December 20, 1973, in a ceremony hosted by Academy member Jack Lemmon at the Academy Award Theater on Melrose Avenue. Lemmon contacted the winners by telephone, and the audience was able to hear the winners' responses.

Jennifer Haskin-O'Reggio, of USC, documentary category bronze medal winner for THE MIRROR LIED, receives her award from Oscar nominee Ed Harris at the 24th annual Student Academy Award Presentations. 1997

Each student received $1,000 in award money from the National Association of Theater Owners, which co-sponsoredthe first awards presentation, and an engraved trophy designed by Academy member Saul Bass.

The second annual Student Film Awards presentation took place in July of 1975. Academy member William Friedkin hosted the event, which was similar in format to the first year's. Among the winners that year was a young Robert Zemeckis, who took home a Special Jury Award for his dramatic film, "A Field of Honor."

In 1976, AT&T joined the Student Film Awards program as sponsor. With the assistance of the Bell System, the winners of the third annual Student Film Awards were flown to Los Angeles by the Academy to receive their trophies and cash grants. The Awards Presentation was held on June 23, 1976, in the Academy's new headquarters in Beverly Hills. On stage in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater as presenters of the awards were Groucho Marx, Verna Fields, George Segal, Chuck Jones and David Wolper.

In 1981, an Honorary Foreign Film Award was added to the Student Film competition to encourage excellence in student filmmaking outside the borders of the United States. The films do not compete against the U. S. productions. Two previous winners of this honor, Jan Sverak, who was a student in the former Czechoslovakia, and Mike Van Diem of the Netherlands, have gone on to win Oscar statuettes in the Foreign Language Film category for subsequent works.

From 1990 to 2000, the Directors Guild of America joined with the Academy to sponsor an additional Student Film Award for directing.

From 1988 through 1990, the Colgate-Palmolive Company served as national sponsors of the Student Film Awards. In 1991, the Academy's Board of Governors officially renamed the program "The Student Academy Awards" to more clearly define the fact that this is the only student film competition sanctioned and sponsored by the Academy.

	Jan Sverak, then a film student in Czechoslovakia, won the Honorary Foreign Student Film Award in 1989 for his film ROPACI (OILGOBBLERS). In 1996, his film KOLYA, took home to the Czech Republic the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Prominent figures from the motion picture industry who have served as presenters over the years have included: Michael Apted, Kathy Bates, Ed Begley Jr., James L. Brooks, Dyan Cannon, Frank Capra, Dom DeLuise, Rebecca De Mornay, Richard Donner, William Fraker, Curtis Hanson, Ed Harris, Arthur Hiller, Tom Hulce, Timothy Hutton, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Kasdan, Stanley Kramer, Burt Lancaster, John Lasseter, Shelley Long, Paul Mazursky, Randy Quaid, Harold Ramis, Lynn Redgrave, Lee Remick, John Singleton, Kevin Spacey, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Jessica Tandy, Billy Dee Williams, Debra Winger and Alfre Woodard.

The Student Academy Awards have become the most direct means for a student from any of the nation's film departments to demonstrate his or her filmmaking skills to industry professionals.

Among other Student Academy Award recipients who have gone on to achieve prominence as professional filmmakers are Spike Lee, Trey Parker, Bob Saget and John Lasseter, who is the only person to win Gold Medal Student Academy Awards two years in a row (1979 and 1980). Lasseter went on to receive an Academy Award nomination in 1986 for "Luxo Jr." and win the Oscar for his animated short film "Tin Toy" (1988). In 1995, he earned another nomination for his screenplay for "Toy Story." That year, he also received an Oscar statuette from the Academy for "his inspired leadership of the Pixar 'Toy Story' team, resulting in the first feature-length computer animated film." In accepting his Oscar, Lasseter said he wanted "to thank the Academy for their long-time support of student filmmakers. I stand here proudly as a product of that encouragement." His most recent Academy Award nomination was in 2001, as one of the producers of Best Animation Feature nominee "Monsters, Inc."