Geography held its annual graduation reception for the Class of 2013 on Saturday June 15 from 11:30 – 1:30 in the Buchanan Courtyard, after the 9 a.m. UCSB Commencement ceremony. Guests, including faculty, students, and friends and family of our distinguished graduates, were served light refreshments. Our Chair, Dar Roberts, made a short speech, introduced the faculty in attendance, and presented the various undergraduate awards. This year’s class includes 50 students, 3 of whom have earned the Bachelor of Science degree, 18 a Bachelor of Arts with a GIS Emphasis degree, and 29 a Bachelor of Arts degree. Ten of these have earned the Outstanding Achievement in the Geography Major Award, and two of them earned the Distinction in the Major Award.
THE JACK AND LAURA DANGERMOND UNDERGRADUATE FELLOWSHIP and THE SAMANTHA C. YING GAMMA THETA UPSILON SCHOLARSHIP: We typically give out these awards at this ceremony each year, but the award winners were unable to attend, and so we awarded them at the year end colloquium. This year’s Jack and Laura Dangermond Undergraduate Fellowship was shared between Terrell Beesley and Qingyun Zhang; Terrell Beesley was the recipient of the Samantha C. Ying Scholarship.
THE NICHOLAS BOURDAKIS MEMORIAL AWARD: The Bourdakis Fund was established after the tragic death of Nicholas, who died in February 2001, just after having declared Geography as his major. This award is given to a newly declared Geography major who has the highest GPA. This fund helps keep Nick’s memory alive by supporting future generations of outstanding undergraduate students in Geography at UCSB. Matthew Conway and Brittany Gale shared the award this year.
The Geography Department has established two awards which honor students graduating with superior grade point averages. The first, OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AS A GEOGRAPHY MAJOR, is awarded to students graduating with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher. Congratulations to Sam Fragoso, Anna Hou, Stephanie Luna, Andrea Olson, Daniel Phillips, Arunima Rashidee, Hunter Sapp, Florian Schratt, Elizabeth Theocharides, and Spencer Zaputi for qualifying for this major award.
The high honor of DISTINCTION IN THE MAJOR is awarded to students who are graduating with an overall GPA of 3.5 and a GPA of 3.6 or higher in Geography classes. In addition, these students have undertaken a major, independent study project and/or graduate-level studies. This year, we honored two students who have achieved this distinction: Arunima Rashidee and Daniel Phillips.
THE CHAIR’S AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN GEOGRAPHY, which is awarded to a graduating senior majoring in Geography who has attained the highest overall grade point average, went to Daniel Phillips. Daniel also received the Outstanding Achievement and Distinction in the Major awards this year.
Congratulations to all!
Editor’s note: Kudos to Karl Antonsson, Undergraduate Adviser for the Department of Geography, for setting up the reception, making sure that things ran smoothly, and clearing up afterwards. Thanks also to Jose Saleta, Graduate Adviser, for taking the enclosed photos and lending a helping hand.
