Student Awards Recognize Academic and Civic Achievements

Lily Herrmann ’19, right, with her mother and sister after being named the 2019 Condon Medal winner.

May 9, 2019

Amidst the surprises at the annual Student Awards Program, the most anticipated is the Condon Medal winner. As President David A. Greene described this year’s winner—passionate about civic engagement, making positive change on campus, co-president of the Feminist Alliance—anticipation turned to recognition so that when Lily Herrmann ’19 was named as winner, few were surprised.

Still, Lorimer Chapel filled with applause and cheers as everyone rose to their feet. Herrmann laughed and cried, then turned to see her mother and sister there to embrace her.

“This year’s winner has served in this community in ways I’ve never seen a student serve before,” Greene said of Herrmann, a French and global studies double major from Schenectady, N.Y. A Presidential Scholar, Herrmann is a peer health educator who has organized events such as Take Back the Night and Diversity Dialogue Dinners. “She has made remarkable contributions to campus culture, especially around issues of gender equity, student health, voting rights, and residential life,” he said. The Condon Medal, the only student award given at commencement, recognizes the finest qualities of citizenship.

Students from across campus were acknowledged for their academic, leadership, and civic achievements at this upbeat event, now in its 11th year. Academic departments from all disciplines were represented, along with programs such as the Writers’ Center, the Colby Museum of Art, and the Pugh Center.

Moeketsi Justice Mokobocho ’19, from Lesotho, was selected by his peers to be the student speaker at Colby’s 198th Commencement May 26. Mokobocho, a biology major with a neurobiology concentration, will share the stage with television writer David E. Kelley. Mokobocho is a community advisor in the Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons and a volunteer mathematics tutor at Mt. Merici School in Waterville. He also received an academic prize in biology and the Democracy and Civic Engagement Award.

Students who have received prestigious national awards were also acknowledged, including Hannah Springhorn ’19, winner of a Watson Fellowship for her project “Food Culture Within Distance Running,” which will take her to Ecuador, Japan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Emmanuel Cheruiyot ’21 won a Davis Project for Peace Award that will support his efforts to build a library in his rural Kenyan community. Fulbright Teaching Fellowships have been granted to Joseph Yauch ’19, who will teach English in Austria, and Jennifer Flaumenhaft ’19, who will teach English in Thailand.

Nikky-Gundinder Singh, the Crawford Family Professor of Religion, received the Charles Bassett Teaching Award. Singh will present the traditional Last Lecture Monday, May 20 at 4 p.m. in the Page Commons Room of Cotter Union.

A PDF, 2019 Student Award Recipients, lists all award winners.