Nonprofit Partner Award
The Florida Humanities Council has been supporting and promoting Florida culture and interdisciplinary inquiry since 1973. The Council has hosted many of our college’s faculty across several different departments to give lectures and workshops across the state of Florida to general audiences, special humanities interests groups, and K-12 educators. In doing so, they have prominently raised our visibility and created an opportunity for humanities to make its way into public policy, cultural heritage work, K-12 classrooms, museums, libraries, and community colleges statewide.
Superior Staff Award
Ikeade Akinyemi is the administrative coordinator for the Center for African Studies.
Ike is extraordinary in her professionalism, dedication, and tenacity. She’s on top of a million and one details pertaining to our programs and grants. She’s kind and warm but also tough. No one is going to pull anything over her! It is always a pleasure to work with Ike because I can trust her 110 percent to give me good advice, insight, and a sense of all the options and constraints of a problem. – Faculty Testimonial, Dr. Brenda Chalfin
Excellence in Advising Awards (Faculty/Advisor Achievement Awards)
This year, Dr. Joann Mossa ends her long tenure as undergraduate coordinator in the Department of Geography. In this role, she has been a tireless ambassador for the study of geography, and has helped make her department a leader in undergraduate education in the college. Dr. Mossa has made the department’s capstone course a model, and she has encouraged experiential learning and professional development. With her help, the department has been a model of curricular innovation, adding a new track in medical geography, adapting the program to be part of the Innovation Academy, and creating an online version of the major within the UF Online program. Most of all, though, Dr. Mossa has been the ideal undergraduate advisor, whose care and concern for students is remarkable. Approachable and welcoming, supportive, and helpful, Dr. Mossa has earned the trust of her students. She has been an advocate for students who needed that support, and has always made it a priority to help students get their college degrees and to achieve their career or graduate school goals.
Under his tutelage, I learned how to manipulate language, examining all the combinations in which a phrase could be penned and the underlying implications each has. As an advisor, Professor William Logan defined the way I chose my classes. He recommended I take classes from professors who would inspire me rather than for subjects that interested me, advice I now pass on to my friends. Further, Professor Logan is keen to his students’ interests. While he discussed with me LIGO’s discovery of gravitational waves, he had engaging conversations about architecture with others. He also helped me ask the right questions with interviews for internships and graduate schools and helped me understand what path I wanted to take by asking me difficult introspective questions. I am very grateful to have had Professor Logan as an advisor. He is a testament to what attending a university is truly about. – Student Testimonial, Zachary Montague
Student Excellence Awards
Caroline Nickerson is a double major in Chinese and history, devoted to public service through the Graham Center and already accomplished in international research and service. Her nominating faculty member says, “She is super impressive for her initiative, serious engagement with ideas, commitment to service, and outgoing personality.”
Mar Angel Dominguez is a biology major who has already presented his research at the Emerging Pathogens Institute. He is exceedingly generous with his time volunteering at Shands, the Mobile Outreach Clinic, the Center for Independent Living, and Gator Advance. According to his nomination, “His moral inclination to study and highlight the stories of marginalized communities and religious groups that are not necessarily his own displays a heart of compassion and tolerance.”
Sarah Pattison is a double major in political science and Latin American Studies, and one credit short of a Portuguese minor on top of that. Among her professors and classmates, she is known for her grace, curiosity, and attention to detail. Her nomination reads, “Sarah is such a complete package — she is someone that I truly admire and look up to, even though she is nearly 30 years my junior. She is simply one of the best humans I’ve had the pleasure of coming across in my life.”
Horizon Award
Michael Dalewitz is founder and CEO of Inspired Review, a company that has proved to be a game-changer in document review in the legal world. Michael is a previous winner of the Alumni Association’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award. And he certainly is a big winner in the Mock Trial Team’s eyes as he has provided much-needed financial support and encouragement to them. Michael has regularly returned to UF to lead conferences on document review and has given generously of his time to create internships, externships, and co-ops.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Carter Boydstun is a longtime employee of the University Foundation, but began his career here in Liberal Arts and Sciences and has been a perpetual advocate for us. Carter was a fundraiser for this college when I was dean, and he’s retiring this spring. Sherry received both her bachelor’s and master’s of education here at UF and has dedicated her career to improving matters for students with special needs. Since they completed their UF education in 1978, Carter and Sherry Boydstun have embarked on a lifetime of philanthropy, including 33 years of giving to the University of Florida and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Lasting Legacy Award
Dr. Howard Sheridan, and his wife, Brenda. Both are graduates of UF, Howard a 1965 graduate in Chemistry and Brenda a graduate the same year in Journalism. Howard and Brenda have been long-time friends and supporters of our Department, their generosity extending back to 1981. As one of our most successful alumni, we are extremely fortunate that Howard and Brenda have again and again made the choice to give back to the Department and the University. They established the Sheridan Fund in support of student scholarships and fellowships in 2008, and Howard and Brenda were one of the first to make a gift in support of the Chemistry/Chemical Biology Building, donating one million dollars in support of the only auditorium in this building: the Dr. Howard and Brenda Sheridan Auditorium, AND his gift included a special collection of his prize-winning nature photography, which adorns the hallway outside the auditorium.
Volunteer of the Year
Gene Inman worked at Eli Lilly for three decades, nearly half of that time in senior executive roles, during which he was a constant and consistent advocate for our college, recruiting many newly minted PhDs for Lilly. When he retired, he and wife, Wanda, returned to Gainesville, where he enjoys playing golf and serving the university as a ranger at the Mark Bostic Golf Course. as well as chairing the Chemistry Leadership Board. In fact, Gene was the very first board member to commit and along with Wanda make a gift for what is now the Chemistry/Chemical Biology Building and showed tremendous leadership during its construction by asking other board members to follow his lead, to which they responded enthusiastically.
Outstanding Alumna
As an undergraduate, Joan Forrest ’77, interned at the Dean of Students Office. She was so inspired by Dean of Students Tom Goodale that her dream was to one day become a dean herself. Today, she is president and CEO of the Dawson Academy, a highly regarded post-graduate institute for dentists. Upon graduation, Joan was named the Outstanding Female Graduate. During her time at UF, she served as president of the Panhellenic Council, was a facilitator for UF’s Leader Shop, and initiated the Order of Omega, a leadership honor society for fraternities and sororities in 1977, the first year the organization admitted women. A longtime annual donor, Joan upped her giving in 2009 with a $10,000 gift to the Bob Graham Center for Public Service for students to intern in Tallahassee. Recently, Joan made a stronger commitment by leaving 10 percent of her estate to the college.
Civic Champion
Throughout his career as governor and U.S. senator, Bob Graham has been a champion of the state and its citizens. He has fought for better schools, a healthy environment, economic opportunity for all citizens, racial and ethnic diversity and Florida’s natural resources. After eight years as governor, he went on to serve 18 years as U.S. senator where he continued to lead the fight for the rights of citizens. Most notable was his work on the Senate Intelligence Committee where he led the investigation of 9/11 and where he fought for the rights of the 9/11 families. He has represented the nation and UF with distinction, honor, and integrity.
Liberal Arts and Sciences Champion
Nan Rich, a Broward County Commissioner and also a former Florida state senator, has given of herself in public service in a clear demonstration of our college’s values of connection and giving back to our communities and society. She embodies a well-minded individual, one with a comprehensive education and a sense of curiosity, with her commitment to higher education. She was the first Floridian to serve as the president of the National Council of Jewish Women and she co-founded the Miami-Dade County Guardian Ad Litem program. President Bill Clinton appointed Nan to the Board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. And, she was the first woman to serve as the Florida Senate Democratic leader.
David Rich graduated with a business degree from UF in 1960. At UF, David was president of his fraternity Tau Espilon Phi, known as the TEPs. There, he started a friendship with the fraternity’s advisor, Sam Proctor, a famous UF history professor and the namesake of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, which thrives in the Liberal Arts and Sciences to this day. David mentioned to Sam that he wanted to start something he called Holocaust Remembrance, commonly referred to as Holocaust Studies today. Sam said he would introduce him to something that didn’t exist during David’s time at UF, the Center for Jewish Studies. He said that he would put them in touch to see what he could do. Warren Bargad, the then-director for the Center for Jewish Studies at UF, decided to set up an endowment for holocaust studies. As part of their family legacy, David and Nan have generously supported the Center for Jewish Studies.