The Colville-Dearborn Award is given for outstanding academic achievement as an honors student majoring in the sciences. The award was established in memory of Francis M. Colville and Terry H. Dearborn, associate professors of physical education at UCSB. Daniel W. Phillips, the number one student, academically, in the UCSB College of Letters and Science, Division of Mathematical, Life, and Physical Sciences, was selected for the prestigious award this year.
Daniel just graduated with a BA in Geography and is the first Geography major to ever win the Colville-Dearborn Award. He graduated with highest honors in Geography, having received the Outstanding Achievement in Geography Award, Distinction in the Major, and the Chair’s Award for Excellence in Geography with a 4.0 grade average. Among his other impressive accomplishments, Daniel received the Academic Excellence Award for completing the College of Letters and Sciences Honors Program, participated in the UCDC Program in the Fall of 2012, was selected for an AAG internship, received a UCSB Regent’s Scholarship in 2009 and a UCSB Faculty Women’s Club Undergraduate Scholarship in 2012, qualified for the UCSB Independent Studies Program, and was a coauthor with Professor Dan Montello of a paper presented in a Cognition, Behavior, and Representation session at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the AAG, coauthored a literature review on the concept of place utility with Professor David Lopez-Carr, and wrote a paper based on his research study of the effects of location and response time on one’s judgment of the cardinal directions – all three papers have or will be submitted for publication.
Daniel’s volunteer and community outreach efforts are equally impressive: “During my time as a student at UCSB I was mainly involved in two on-campus clubs. One was the UCSB Geographic Honor Society, known as Gamma Theta Upsilon, for which I participated in weekly meetings, activities such as local hikes, and geographic outreaches. GTU helped me to interact with fellow geography students and learn about the many career and educational opportunities for geographers. The other club was Real Life, a Christian fellowship organization the activities, retreats, and outreaches of which are aimed to connect people and reach out to those in need. Some of the service projects that Real Life has done in which I have participated include cleaning houses around Isla Vista and fundraising for International Justice Mission in their effort to eradicate human trafficking. Real Life provided me with a loving community of people who shared my beliefs and values in whom I could confide and with whom I could grow in my faith and serve others. Apart from the service projects I did with Real Life, the hours for which I cannot estimate, I have volunteered in three capacities. For one, I served as a tutor in the Isla Vista Elementary School Tutoring Program for 40 hours in the winter and spring quarters of 2012, in which I helped fifth-grade students with their math and language arts homework. I enjoyed helping the students grasp concepts and watching them visibly improve in their studies. For two, I interned at the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County for about 20 hours last summer, working in a team using a Geographic Information Systems program to create a map showing food supply locations and areas of food need in the county. I felt a lot of purpose in working on that project, as I was using software that I really enjoy to ultimately help the Foodbank combat hunger in the area more effectively. For three, I traveled overseas to the Czech Republic last summer with a group from my church to help run an English-teaching camp for high school students for one and a half weeks. Serving somewhere in the 100-hour range, I helped set up events, gave talks, prepared lesson plans, and taught classes for students who were very beginners in English. This was an incredibly rewarding experience, as I could see by the end how much they had improved and how much they valued what I had taught them.”
The last we heard, Daniel had just procured a job with the AAG in Washington, DC as a research assistant. He will be using GIS to make maps for their grant proposals, and he will be starting that in July or August, depending on when he can find a place to live. We look forward to hearing more from our illustrious alumnus!
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