The Vanderbilt community took a night to celebrate the accomplishments of exceptional student leaders and organizations that have aimed to challenge and improve campus culture in various arenas with the Vanderbilt Awards for Leadership Excellence (VALE) ceremony, held in the SLC on April 3.
After the awards ceremony, the 2019 Walther Award for VUcept Excellence (WAVE) recipients, listed below, had the opportunity to engage in a breakout Skype session with Michael Walther (‘89) himself. Walther, a former VUceptor, established the award in 2014 to recognize the hard work and dedication of current VUceptors as they serve as peer mentors and positive influences for first-year students. In addition to the award, Walther created a scavenger hunt challenge for the WAVE recipients, giving them a chance to work together and each win a $100 cash prize. The rules were simple: the recipients had ten minutes to find six pieces of blue masking tape that had been hidden in the SLC. Each piece of tape had a word scrambled on the back; the WAVE recipients had to decode the words and guess the phrase to win.
The challenge went down to the wire, but after a lot of laughing, some frustrated groans and a few generous hints, the team correctly guessed the phrase: “Always seek opportunities to assist others.”
It truly was a night of celebrating student success, dedication to service and ingenuity. Below is a full list of 2019 VALE recipients; more information on the significance behind each award is available here.
Individual Awards:
Accolade: The Chancellor’s Diversity Awards – Cedoni Francis
Casey Carter Bonar Award – Farah Arif
Glenn & Elizabeth Bogitsh Award – Brittney McKnight
The Imani Award – Morgan Newman
Lori Groves-White Award for Advocacy and Courage – Douglas Finnegan
John T. & Lizzie Allen McGill First Year Award – Shubham Gulati and Alyssa O’Connell
John T. McGill Award – Sami Heller
John T. and Lizzie Allen Upper-class McGill Award – Sami Heller, Telyse Masaoay and Iliana Yanes
Nora C. Chaffin Scholarship – Juliana Hernandez
Reverend Beverly A. Asbury Award for Interfaith Dialogue – Zahra Biabani
Ripple in the Pond Award – Sangami Pugazenthi
Rob Roy Purdy Award – Siri Nadler
Robert Peter Pratt Memorial Award – Olivia Cherry
Susan Jung Award – Mahek Mehta
Thomas M. Weser Award – Troy Jiang
William Aaron Pathfinder Award – Zoe Psiakis
2019 Walther Awards for VUcept Excellence:
The Diversity Award – Simon Obi
The Creativity Award – Kirby Laguerre
The Student Success Award – Agatha Fenech
The Faculty Engagement Award – Tyler Anderson
The Lifer Award – Jacob Pierce
Thee New VUceptor Award – Neena Kapoor
Student Organization Awards:
Best Arts Program – The Kefi Collective
Best Collaborative Program – Delta Sigma Theta, Vanderbilt Student and Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center
Best Diversity and Inclusion Program – Greek Inclusivity Alliance
Best Health and Wellness Program – Mu Rho chapter of Delta Sigma Theta
Best Intercultural Awareness Program – iLEAD
Best Interfaith Program – Vanderbilt Interfaith Council
Community Engagement – Vanderbilt Prison Project
