Arts & Sciences Students Honored for Excellence

This year two of our students won campus honors. Clare Maakestad was recognized as a Helen Hansen Outstanding Graduate Student and Mikaela Shaw as an Outstanding Student Athlete. Both received their awards at the 2017 Student Honors Convocation, photos above.

Maakestadt is passionate about her major Sociology as a framework for making sense of the world and her recent research focuses on environmental sociology and local/sustainable agriculture. Her other awards include the 2014 Sullinger Scholarship for the top incoming student in her program, a 2016 Graduate Research and Creative Activity research grant, and a competitive sociology graduate assistantship.

Shaw, a Deweese, Nebraska, native, completed her senior season for the women’s basketball team. She was a four-year starter, a three-year captain, and a team and conference leader in points, rebounds, and assists. “The biggest honor in getting this award is that it shows that I survived four years of college, being able to balance being a student and an athlete,” Shaw said. As a Biology major taking the pre-dental curriculum, Shaw has done much more than survive.

Also honored at the convocation, were our outstanding majors. Outstanding majors are generally not only strong academically but also are researchers, mentors, leaders among their peers, and community volunteers. From among each year’s outstanding majors, the Dean selects one student as the Dean’s Award winner to represent the College. All of the outstanding majors and the Dean’s Award winner are honored at the annual campus Student Honors Convocation.

The Dean's Award for 2017 went to Devin Christensen. Christensen is passionate about animal conservation and that passion inspires her studies, her research, her community service, and her plans for the future. She is an Environmental Science major and Chemistry minor and a presentation of her research entitled "Microflora in the cheek pouches of Ord’s kangaroo rat (Dipodomys ordii) from the Nebraska Sandhills" garnered an “Outstanding” award at the Research and Creative Activity Fair this spring.She volunteers for the Nebraska Humane Society and has held several internships with the Henry Doorly Zoo. This summer she will travel to Madagascar for the zoo as part of a conservation project directed at endangered lemurs. Her long term plans include going on to a doctoral program and pursuing a career in conservation.