A class of 20 University Honors Program graduates savored its achievements earlier this week in advance of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh midyear commencement.
At commencement, more than 1,100 accept their diplomas at Kolf Sports Center.
The University Honors Program, transitioning next year to an Honors College, held its own celebration, recognizing the successes of 20 high-achieving students who successfully completed all requirements of the University Honors Program. An Honors graduation ceremony and reception were held Dec. 13. The Honors Program class of 20 was the largest ever fall graduation class honored.
“It’s a relief actually,” said Afusat “Wummy” Deng, an Honors Program student from Nigeria, who will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, said about her impending graduation from UW Oshkosh.
Her family is excited, she said, “and maybe I will be too. Right now, there are a lot of papers and clinicals to finish.”
Deng, 27, recieved the honors medallion (cumulative grade point average above 3.5) and plans to participate in a nursing residency program that specializes in mental health. She completed her studies while being pregnant during nursing school. She is mother to a 1-year-old son.
Earlier this year, she worked as a psychiatric care technician for several months at Winnebago Mental Health in Oshkosh. The experience, and knowing she was making a difference in people’s lives, made her think about pursuing future work in mental health.
“Even though I just got that job, something just started making me think about it as I had to pick a clinical specialty,” she said.
Meghan Owens, who grew up in Waukesha, Wis., watched her older sister attend and graduate from UW Oshkosh.
She chose the University because she was interested in its journalism program and because it was “the one campus out of those I toured that I felt really represented what I wanted.”
Owens said she “never for a moment doubted this was the right campus” for her.
She changed her major several times until settling upon business. She said she “fell in love with human resources” but kept political science as a minor. She said she was surprised at how well the two fields complemented each other and feels she learned a great deal from both fields of study.
Owens, who recieved the honors medallion, was hired before graduation as a human resources assistant in the Office of Research and Graduate Education at UW-Madison.
Laurence Carlin, who leads the Honors College at UW Oshkosh, said he believes Owens was hired largely on the basis of her honors thesis work, which focused on the transitioning experiences of transgender employees from an HR perspective.
Owens said she doesn’t think she would have been hired if not for the experiences she had in the Undergraduate Advising Resource Center (UHRC) and HR offices on campus.
“These positions allowed me to develop a strong foundation of professional skills to build from and a place to apply the concepts I learned about HR in class, to the real world,” she said, adding that her thesis demonstrated that she had thought critically about the issues facing HR professionals today.
She said she was inspired by her Little Sister (through Big Brothers/Big Sisters) and her sisters biological and Greek (in sorority Alpha Xi Delta) as well as other family members, friends and professors “who pushed me to try new things and be the best I can be.”
Barbara Bass received the honors medallion and graduates with a major in chemistry and minor in neurosciences. She also received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, studied in England with the Honors Program and was a member of the gymnastics team for four years.
Carlin said Bass, a native of Homer Glen, Ill., recently was accepted into both Northwestern University’s Feinburg School of Medicine and Midwestern University’s College of Health Sciences to study physical therapy. Her honors thesis work focused on electrochemical treatments for breast cancer.
“My parents are major influences in my life and my dad was the main inspiration in my choice to pursue a degree in chemistry,” Bass said. “I always had a love for numbers and science. Chemistry seemed to be the perfect combination of the two.”
Bass said her parents inspire her by providing love and sacrifice for their family and by showing that working hard to serve others and the ones they love is the best kind of work there is. They have demonstrated the importance of being well-rounded in studies and experiences.
“Another inspiration that I look up to quite a bit is Mother Teresa,” Bass said. “This small, but powerful woman proved to the world that one woman, with love in her heart and a true goal on her mind, can heal such a wounded part of the world with small but constant acts of service in whatever way she was able. I aspire to have such an impact on the world.”
Additional University Honors Program graduates:
- Alicia Borre, human resources management
- Ashley Brinkman, social science; minor in history-secondary education
- Melani May Debish, nursing
- Annie Hackbarth, kinesiology
- Jamie Heberer, history; minor in German
- Samantha Kling, mathematics and Spanish
- Emma Lenz, English-secondary education
- Carly Rae Leu, nursing
- Corissa Mosher, journalism; minor in political science
- Kayla Rose Newman, psychology
- Michaela Otto, criminal justice and Spanish
- Josephy Pelkey, kinesiology
- Nicole Ashley Rogstad, English-secondary education
- Mikaela Schmelzer, biology
- Rebecca Anne Slick, kinesiology, minor in French
- Ashley Trad, nursing
- Alyssa Valentyne, biology and Spanish; minor in chemistry
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