Inaugural G. Alec Stewart Student Achievement Awards Are Presented

Issue Date: 
March 4, 2013

 

From left, awardee Michael Deckebach; Carolyn Stewart, widow of University Honors College founding dean G. Alec Stewart; awardee Rashmi Kumar; and Edward M. Stricker, current dean of the University Honors College. Not pictured are awardee Joseph Thomas, who was attending a student conference in Miami on labor issues, and awardee Julia Radomski, who is studying abroad in Cuba. 

Four Pitt juniors who have demonstrated leadership and global awareness—through activities such as fundraising for North Korean refugees, translating Spanish documents for a U.S. Congressional committee, and studying abroad on multiple continents—are the first recipients of the University Honors College’s annual G. Alec Stewart Student Achievement Award, established this academic year for Pitt juniors and named to honor the memory of the Honors College’s late founding dean. The four awardees are Michael Deckebach, Rashmi Kumar, Julia Radomski, and Joseph Thomas, all enrolled in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. The students were recognized Feb. 22 at a reception following Pitt’s Honors Convocation. Carolyn Stewart, G. Alec Stewart’s widow, presented award citations and $1,000 prizes to the winning students. The students selected to receive the award had shown in their application essays that they are not only leaders and global citizens but students who are carrying out the life lessons that G. Alec Stewart was known for imparting: follow a course of study with breadth and depth, take initiative, and have a willingness to help others. “This award serves several important goals,” said Edward M. Stricker, dean of the University Honors College. “The first is to honor Dean Stewart by highlighting and advancing important aspects of his legacy. A second goal is to honor students for their exemplary academic achievements while they still are students at Pitt. A third goal is to make clear that in addition to providing a rich array of educational opportunities for undergraduate students, the University Honors College publicly recognizes and thereby draws attention to character traits in our students that will foster outstanding citizenship before and after graduation—traits found in the students who have been honored this year.”Information on the 2012-13 G. Alec Stewart Student Achievement Award winners follows. Michael Deckebach is majoring in religious studies and history and minoring in political science. My studies have fascinated me with the complexity of human life, he wrote in his award application. He is president of Pitt’s Talk About It Campaign, which is raising awareness on campus about depression treatments and suicide prevention, and he is a program coordinator in Sutherland Hall with Pitt’s Office of Residence Life. He has tutored high school students in the Pittsburgh area, volunteered as an English teacher in Peru, and participated in a leadership program in Israel. Deckebach is from Toledo, Ohio. Rashmi Kumar is majoring in molecular biology and English literature and minoring in chemistry. The same critical thinking process through which I analyzed how water channels transport water in a biochemistry class can be used to analyze dystopian symbolism in a T.S. Eliot poem, she wrote in her award application. She is president and cofounder of Pitt’s chapter of the Global Medical Brigade, and she is working as a student researcher in the laboratory of Lisa Borghesi, an immunology professor in Pitt’s School of Medicine. Kumar was born in India and later settled with her family in Fort Collins, Colo.Julia Radomski, who is currently studying abroad in Cuba, is majoring in anthropology and economics, minoring in Spanish, and pursuing a Certificate of Latin American Studies and a Certificate of Women’s Studies. Honors college advising led me to take courses in a variety of fields in order to focus my broad interest in humanitarian issues, she wrote in her award application. Last summer she interned with the Committee on Education and the Workforce, Democratic Office, of the U.S. House of Representatives, where she translated documents from Colombian congressional labor committee staff, among other duties. Radomski is from Silver Spring, Md. Joseph Thomas is majoring in biology and political science and minoring in chemistry and neuroscience. I am both fascinated and driven by the interplay between governments, their people, and the health of populations, he wrote in his award application. He is the business manager for the Pitt chapter of Liberty in North Korea, which raises funds for North Korean refugees, and he is the cofounder and president of Americans for Informed Democracy at Pitt. He has volunteered at a school in India and at a health care clinic in Honduras. Thomas is from Somerset, Pa. Next year, during their senior year, the four awardees will serve as ambassadors for the University Honors College by introducing incoming students to academic and cocurricular opportunities offered by the college—helping the next generation of students to show initiative, explore multiple fields of academic study, and become well-rounded global citizens. 

 Caption
From left, awardee Michael Deckebach; Carolyn Stewart, widow of University Honors College founding dean G. Alec Stewart; awardee Rashmi Kumar; and Edward M. Stricker, dean of the University Honors College. Not pictured are awardee Joseph Thomas, who was attending a student conference in Miami on labor issues, and awardee Julia Radomski, who is studying abroad in Cuba.