Top-notch students recognized

Students, staff and teachers filled Magnolia Ballroom on Monday to celebrate the achievements of many outstanding students. The ballroom brimmed with excellence as students were honored with various awards from many organizations around campus.

“The best predictor of student success is campus involvement,” said Bruce Harshbarger, vice president for student affairs. “Today we want to celebrate all students who are involved across campus.”

Honorees represented nearly every campus activity from recreational sports to Greek Life to Campus Life.

“I took a brief look at all the leaders nominated,” said Zach Mullins, SGA President-elect and guest speaker for Bobcat Awards. “I’m glad we have such great leaders on campus.”

With so many active student leaders from various organizations on campus, many students felt honored to simply be nominated.

“I think that this nomination is encouraging for all the hard work we’ve put in throughout the year,” WGUR Promotional Director Blaire Brennan said.

Many graduating seniors were also honored during the ceremony. Outstanding graduates from each major were selected as representatives of Who’s Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities and received recognition during the Bobcat Awards. Who’s Who is a national organization that connects hundreds of universities to produce a national list of excellent graduates from all over the country.

“I’m very excited about this honor,” Gabby Acuña said. “A teacher in the marketing department nominated me.”

Another Who’s Who honoree, Amanda Hamel, expressed her excitement about being an individual nominee as well as a Delta Zeta member, nominated for excellence in community service.

“Our girls average 25 hours of community service a year,” said fellow Delta Zeta member Annete Torres.

Community service extended far beyond Greek Life and seemed to be a common theme among the award recipients.

“I’m getting an award for working 464 hours at the Oconee Regional Medical Center,” said Travis Davidson, co-recipient of the GIVE Center’s Servant Leader of the Year Award.

Paul Sedor and Kendall Stiles, speakers from the GIVE center emphasized that through the GIVE center GCSU earned just short of 50,000 community service hours during the 2008-2009 school year.

“We will probably top 50,000 by July,” Stiles said.

The award ceremony concluded with Campus Life’s Organization of the Year Award and Student Leader of the Year Award.

Among the many organizations nominated, Environmental Science Club took top honors as the Organization of the Year. The club provides many opportunities for students to make GCSU a little greener.

“It’s a great honor,” Jeff Brittan said, who accepted the award on the club’s behalf. “We did a lot of work this year for the green fee which unfortunately did not pass.”

Despite the failure of the green fee, Brittan remains positive.

“Next year we’re going to push more for the green fee,” Brittan said. “We’re also going to continue recycling river cleanup and trying to become more involved on campus.”

Finally, Cody Mosher received top honors as the Student Leader of the Year. Mosher excels as a student leader at GCSU and the crowd gave her a rousing standing ovation as she went to the podium to receive her award.

“I am just very humbled and honored,” Mosher later said. “I remember attending (Bobcat Awards) last year and really admiring the student leaders on this campus and wanting to get involved.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 24 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry