2026 awards
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Zoe Decatur
Award: Education Studies Outstanding Student Award
Major/Minor: Education Sciences and Psychology Double Major
Career Goals: Clinical Social Worker
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Go get ‘em tiger” - Frank Lawatsch Sr. (a.k.a. G-pa)
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Nora Stoefen
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Elementary Education Award
Major/Minor: Education Sciences and Human Developmental Sciences Double Major
Career Goals: Elementary school educator, researcher, and author
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." – Arthur Ashe
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Noah Hanover
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Secondary Education Award
Major/Minor: Mathematics Major and Math Secondary Education Minor
Career Goals: The best math teacher you've ever seen
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not." – Kurt Cobain
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Lillian Vazquez
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Programs, Policy & Research Award
Major/Minor: Ethnic Studies and Education Sciences Double Major
Career Goals: I aspire to be a high school Ethnic Studies educator who provides a transformational and liberatory education for my students.
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "You distend this more inclusive puente to unknown corners—you don’t build bridges to safe and familiar territories; you have to risk making mundo nuevo, have to risk the uncertainty of change. And nepantla is the only space where change happens. Change requires more than words on a page: It takes perseverance, creative ingenuity, and acts of love." - Gloria Anzaldua
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Mycah Gutierrez
Award: Partners at Learning Outstanding Service Learning Award
Major/Minor: Psychology Major with a Specialization in Clinical Psychology and General Biology Minor
Career Goals: A Doctor!
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "My mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world." - Mr. Rogers
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Jinsil Park
Award: Partners at Learning Outstanding Service Learning Award
Major/Minor: Education Sciences Major
Career Goals: Elementary school teacher aspiring to develop educational media for children
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another." - Yuri Kochiyama
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2025 students awards
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Annette Lopez
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Elementary Education Award
Major/Minor: Education Sciences and Human Developmental Sciences Double Major
Career Goals: Elementary school educator, researcher, and author
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." – Arthur Ashe
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Jasmin Amezcua
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Secondary Education Award
Major/Minor: General Biology Major and Science Education Minor
Career Goals: My goal is to become a High School Biology Teacher who creates a welcoming environment for all of her students and inspires them to stay curious.
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Always find the light in things, even in the darkness."
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Noah Meni
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Programs, Policy & Research Award
Major/Minor: Education Studies Major
Career Goals: Working in outdoor education and recreation for a university
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.” – John Muir
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Kaitlyn Rim
Award: Education Studies Outstanding Student Award
Major/Minor: Education Sciences and Psychology Double Major and Linguistics Minor
Career Goals: Elementary school teacher and university lecturer
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Keep watering yourself. You're growing.” – E. Russell
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Dan Han
Award: Partners at Learning Outstanding Service Learning Award
Major/Minor: Human Biology Major and Education Studies Minor
Career Goals: Medicine
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. – Martin Luther King Jr.
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2024 student awards
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Paige Nguyen
Award: Education Studies Outstanding Student Award
Major/Minor: Education Sciences Major and Human Developmental Sciences Minor
Career Goals: Elementary school teacher and administrative leader
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says "I'm possible!" – Audrey Hepburn
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Venus Spann
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Secondary Education Award
Major/Minor: Linguistics, Cognition & Language Major and Single Subject Minor
Career Goals: Secondary school teacher and pursue a PhD
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour." – Walden, Henry David Thoreau
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Esther Bueno
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Elementary Education Award
Major/Minor: Education Studies Major and Psychology Minor
Career Goals: Elementary school teacher
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
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Kole Kistler
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Education Award
Major/Minor: Education Sciences Major and Critical Gender Studies Minor with Honors Research
Career Goals: University professor and teach about queer theory, intersectional feminism, educational policy, and disability justice
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who you are– so you can more wisely build the future.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968)
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Geovanni Aceves
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Service-Learning/PAL Award
Major/Minor: Mathematics & Education Sciences Double Major and Public Service Minor
Career Goals: Secondary mathematics teacher
Favorite Inspirational Quote: "You can often view glimpses of ingeniousness not as inexplicable miracles, but as the residue of experience; and when you do, the idea of genius goes from being mesmerizing to instead being actively inspirational." – Grant Sanderson
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2023 student awards
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Alexandra Pina
Award: Education Studies Outstanding Student Award
Major/Minor: Double major in Education Sciences and Linguistics: Language Studies (Spanish)
Career Goals: Middle school spanish and dual language teacher
Favorite Inspirational Quote: “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” -Marcus Aurelius
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Angelie Hoang
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Secondary Education Award Major/Minor: Major in Mathematics and minor in Mathematics Education Career Goals: Secondary mathematics teacher Favorite Inspirational Quote: "To love through and because of mathematics is to build hopefulness, to cultivate creativity, to promote reflection, and to foster a thirst for deep knowledge and deep investigation.” -Francis Su |
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Chenelle McClain
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Education Award Major/Minor: Linguistics and Education Studies Career Goals:To advocate for equity and equality in education. Favorite inspirational quote: "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -Nelson Mandela |
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Johanna Kye
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Elementary Education Award Major/Minor: Education Studies Major and Psychology Minor & Transnational Korean Studies Minor Career Goals: Elementary school teacher Favorite inspirational quote: "Hope is the thing with feathers. That perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all." -Emily Dickinson |
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Tori McMillan
Award: Education Studies Excellence in Service-Learning/PAL Award
Major/Minor: Double major in Psychology with a Specialization in Cognitive Psychology & Black Diaspora and African American Studies with a Minor in Education Studies
Career goals: Elementary school teacher
Favorite Inspirational Quote: “I am still learning – how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.” -Audre Lorde
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