UNO Student Awarded Prestigious Phi Kappa Theta Fellowship

Kaylee Lahti (Legal Studies, Spanish) is one of 62 students across the nation to land a prestigious Phi Kappa Theta fellowship.

The fellowship, which is intended to provide funding for a student’s graduate studies, will allow Lahti to focus on her first semester of law school at Creighton University.

“Looking at the program... their vision is basically building a better world through the pursuit of knowledge. And I definitely align with that statement,” Lahti said. “I love the idea of being a lifelong learner in all aspects.”

As a University of Nebraska Omaha student, Lahti used her dual-degree studies to pursue her passions and make connections across campus. Whether she was at the College of Business Administration making strides in her legal studies mentorship under Dr. Destynie Sewell, or at the College of Arts and Sciences perfecting Spanish grammar with her World Languages and Literature classmates, she made the most of her undergraduate years to prepare herself for a future at law school.

For some, the connection between law and language might seem distant. But for Lahti, the pair makes perfect sense.

“Law is its own language, and it's a language that not everybody has access to,” Lahti said. “So that's your job as an attorney: to make that accessible to other people.”

Beginning law school as a Phi Kappa Theta fellow isn’t Lahti’s only achievement. In August, she won the student competition for the Academy of Legal Studies in Business Centennial Conference. Her winning presentation was on her legal studies capstone paper, titled “The Right to Unplug: Consumer Protection in the Era of Data Mining.”

Lahti is grateful for the opportunities made available to her at UNO, and especially for faculty members like Sewell and Lucy Morrison, director of the University Honors Program.

“All the connections that I’ve made through UNO... I couldn’t be happier with the choices I have made to lead up to here.”