The University Honors Program (UHP) at Kansas State University is pleased to announce student and faculty award winners for 2023. Honors works with many excellent students and is supported by many excellent faculty and staff each year. These awards reflect our desire to recognize some portion of those many outstanding efforts.
Based on demonstrated academic excellence and involvement in the Honors community, the Honors Program selects four students annually to receive UHP Outstanding Student Awards.
First-year recipients are Jack O’Malley, pre-law sophomore in history and political science with a minor in Leadership Studies, and Hannah Trechter, sophomore in psychology. Both students demonstrated academic excellence, a commitment to personal growth, and community building.
Two longer-term Honors participants are also selected. Sydney Hanson, graduating senior in personal financial planning with minors in business and human development and family science, as well as a certificate in Kansas insurance and Alexa Heseltine, junior in microbiology with a minor in gender, women, and sexuality studies and a certificate in global health, medicine and society. Both were selected for the ways in which they connected co-curriculars and engaged learning with their majors and future career paths.
UHP Teaching and Mentoring awards are presented to two faculty or staff members who demonstrate outstanding support for UHP students. James Byland, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Staley School of Leadership, was nominated by multiple students for his Honors-First Year Seminar on the topic of Leadership and Social Justice in the Sporting World and was particularly praised for his ability to effectively facilitate difficult yet rewarding discussions as the class explored how iconic athletes have experienced and confronted issues of gender and race, and various types of inequity. Rachel Levitt, Ph.D., associate professor in Social Transformation Studies, was selected for their strong ongoing commitment to creating Honors opportunities for students, including the mentorship of two Honors projects, the teaching an Honors First-Year Seminar and the creation pre-established Honors contracts for 11 sections of five different courses in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies over the last four years.
The University Honors Program is grateful for the involvement and contributions of all six recipients. Each awardee was also recognized at the annual UHP year-end reception April 21, in 127 Leadership Studies. Photos from the event can be found on Facebook.
