Office of International Education hosts awards ceremony
In celebration of International Education Week, the Office of International Education hosted a reception to honor the winners of both its Global Citizen Awards and this year’s photo contest.
This is the photo contest’s third year, but the first year for the citizenship awards, event organizer Sarah Westmoreland said.
Anne Bliss, an instructor in the writing and rhetoric department, was presented with this year’s Campus Global Citizen of the Year by Larry Bell, director of the Office of International Education.
“Anne Bliss is the embodiment of a Global Citizen. She wants to go everywhere and meet everyone,” Bell read from Bliss’s nomination.
“When she isn’t working, Anne is traveling. Every year on her birthday she hosts a birthday party and asks for donations to a variety of causes in lieu of gifts. Last year the donations went to a Tibetan village,” Bell said.
Bliss was nominated by four faculty members and instructors.
“It’s strange to get an award doing what I love doing,” Bliss said. “It’s just part of me.”
Galina Siarheichyk, a doctoral candidate in comparative literature, was named International Student of the Year.
She was nominated by Artemi Romanov, the chairman of the department of Germanic and Slavic languages and literatures.
“In my opinion a global citizen is an individual who advances the understanding and appreciation of other cultures,” he said.
Elizabeth Hensleigh was the Smith Hall International Program Student of the Year 2006. She was nominated by the program staff as the student who has most inspired others to make a difference in the world.
Katherine Bruch, an anthropology major, won the Study Abroad Student of the Year 2006. She studied abroad twice, first in China on a grant, where she studied culture, and again in Turkey for an academic year.
In the photo contest, there were a total of 106 photo entries, the top 24 of which were displayed at the reception, Westmoreland said.
There were three winners in the photo contest.
Rex Buchanan, a senior media studies major, and Katie Fox, a senior history major, tied for second place with their photographs.
Fox’s photo, titled “Henna-ed Hands,” was taken in Morocco where local women painted henna on her hand in honor of a festival there.
“It was just like being at a nail salon in the states,” she said.
Katie Campbell was the first-place winner of the photo contest. Her photograph, “Mother and Child”, is of her host mother and sister in Peru, where she studied abroad.
Bell and Westmoreland agreed that the awards were created to help increase international awareness.
“International education is great, both for incoming and outgoing students. It really helps the community,” Westmoreland said. “It helps study abroad students learn about what’s out there, and about the diversity of the world — and that’s what we’re promoting.”
