Elon University students and a staff member were recognized for their leadership with awards sponsored by Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society.
On Thursday, April 29, the university launched a special Omicron Delta Kappa website to recognize this year’s recipients. The site includes video commendations offered by campus partner presenters for each award.
Since 1977, Elon’s Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa has recognized students who have demonstrated outstanding leadership skills while maintaining high academic standards. The Circle’s core components include academics, multicultural experience, athletics, campus and community service, social and religious activities, campus government, creative and performing arts, and journalism, speech and mass media.
Exemplary achievement and service are also being recognized this spring during several individual school ceremonies.
2021 Omicron Delta Kappa leadership award winners
Student Media Award – Rachel A. Cifarelli
This award is presented to the student who has contributed the most to advance communications on campus during the current academic year.
Leadership Studies Award – Chandler Alexis Vaughan
The Leadership Studies Award is awarded annually to the senior Leadership Studies minor who has best exemplified the study of leadership as an academic discipline through excellence in related coursework, research and/or other scholarly contributions.
Hilaire Pickett ’08 Leadership Grant – Angy Nicoll Aguilar & Darsev Kaur
The endowed scholarship, the Hilaire Pickett ’08 Leadership Grant, is awarded to students that participate in the Leadership Education and Development at Elon. Awards are granted to support students in their junior or senior years to pursue leadership internships or legacy efforts. The students must demonstrate a significant commitment to their organizations and academics and be active in contributions that have a positive impact on the Elon community.
The PERCS Outstanding Ethnography Award – Sydney Rey Hallisey & Madison Eleanor Gray
This award recognizes the student who has conducted the most outstanding ethnographic research project at Elon University, judged according to the quality of both the process and product. The award is given by PERCS: The Program for Ethnographic Research and Community Studies.
Katharine duPont Weymouth Scholarship – Lauren Cassidy Willingham
This scholarship is awarded to outstanding juniors in the social sciences and given in honor of alumnus Frank Lyon ’71.
W.L. Monroe Christian Education and Personality Award – Connor Finnegan Jenkins & Srija Dutta
Recipients of this award demonstrate citizenship and a strong desire to help others improve themselves. A trust created by the late W.L. Monroe Sr., who attended Elon in 1917, provides cash awards to the recipients.
Truitt Center Reconciliation Award – Caroline E. Penfield
This award is presented to a student who best exemplifies the vision of Douglas G. Noiles and Edna Truitt Noiles ’ 44, who endowed the program in the Vera Richardson Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life “to enable Elon students to learn about their own and other faiths and to live lives of reconciliation.”
Ella Brunk Smith Award – Sarah Jane McDonald & Samantha Chessen
In honor of Ella Brunk Smith, wife of former Elon President Dr. L.E. Smith, a cash award is presented to a female student in the senior class who has made significant contributions to the religious and moral life on campus.
Martha Smith Award for Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies – Jay Damian Tiemann
This award is given in honor of Martha Smith, one of the founding mothers of the women’s, gender and sexualities studies program at Elon University, to recognize the achievements – both academic and activist in nature – of a graduating senior Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Studies minor.
Iris Holt McEwen Community Service Award – Talia N. Gallo
This award is presented to a student whose service to Elon and the larger community exemplifies the generosity of spirit and dedication to philanthropy of Iris Holt McEwen.
Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award – Jubitza Figueroa, Yannick Twumasi & Sandra Lynn Reid
The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award is an award presented to graduating seniors, alumni and community members of selected colleges and universities in the Southern United States for excellence of character and service to humanity. At Elon, two graduating seniors and one faculty or staff member are recognized annually for their honesty, morality, ethics, integrity, responsibility, determination, courage and compassion.
Newman Civic Fellows Award – Anna Lee Gillespie
The Campus Compact Newman Civic Fellows Award is a national award that recognizes students who inspire and engage others through their work to provide long-term solutions for social issues in their communities. This award is made in honor of Dr. Frank Newman, one of Campus Compact’s founders, who was a tireless advocate for the role of higher education in preparing students for active and engaged citizenship.
John W. Barney Memorial Award – Meghan Eun-Seon Murray & Emily Marie Guyton Lange
This award recognizes the senior(s) with the highest cumulative GPA. Colleagues, former students, and friends of the late John W. Barney established this award in his honor. Mr. Barney graduated from Elon in 1910 and was a member of the faculty for more than three decades.
William Moseley Brown Leadership Award – Eukela Little
Presented by Elon’s Circle of Omicron Delta Kappa, this award is presented to the student who consistently demonstrates the highest ideals of Omicron Delta Kappa: scholarship, service, integrity, character and fellowship, including providing distinguished leadership to his or her peers. The award is named in honor of a former Elon faculty member and one of the original founders of the national chapter of Omicron Delta Kappa.