Whew! Honors Weekend is finally wrapping up! This is the weekend when Butler hosts a number of events to recognize outstanding students, including the Top 100 Banquet, Honors Program events and academic college awards. It is one of my favorite times of year, because I really get to learn about all the amazing scholarship,research, service, and leadership that my classmates are doing.  They always inspire me to be a better student and citizen after I hear what they've been up to.  Now that I am an upperclassman, I know most of the people winning the awards, which makes it even more fun.

Friday was the Top 100 Banquet.  This is an event sponsored by the Alumni Association which recognizes 100 outstanding junior and senior students for their achievements in the classroom, their character, and their leadership and service in BU extracurricular activities and the community.  At the banquet, the Top 10 Women and Men and the Outstanding Female and Male student are named. 

I was totally shocked to be named as one of the Top 10 Women this year! Seriously! Typically the Top 10 is mostly made up of seniors so it was quite a surprise, but also a great honor to receive that award during my junior year.  Although I can think of many more people who are very deserving of that award, I do put so much of my time and passion into Butler, so it was exciting and rewarding to be recognized for this.  I really liked that the focus of the Banquet was thanking our families, friends, and professors who have helped us make it this far, because I would be nothing without the constant support of all my loved ones.

Here are the 2009 Top 10 Women and Men. I was so honored to stand beside people I really admire on this campus! You can also see our University President Dr. Bobby Fong on the far left.

Today there was a brunch reception for upper-level Honors students - the seniors who just turned in their theses and the juniors who just turned in our proposals and are now hearing back.  (Mine got approved - hooray!).  I didn't make it to that brunch because my parents, sister and grandparents were here so we all wanted to go out together for breakfast at Cafe Patachou (basically my favorite restaurant in Indy - SO good!)

This afternoon we had the academic awards.  I went to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on behalf of the English Department.  I got an award for excellence in literature, which was also surprising (considering I was away from the department studying abroad for half of this year...) but exciting to receive from the professors I respect so much.   The thing about LAS Awards is that we are the biggest College at Butler, so our ceremony takes FOREVER.  It was so hard to sit still that long... but I do enjoy hearing the Dean read the bio of each student as they accept their award.  Like I said earlier, Butler students are AMAZING! It is so cool to hear where everybody has been interning, the awesome schools they are going to for graduate work, and all the community service hours they have logged and organizations they have led. 

Another cool aspect of the awards was that nine of my sorority sisters were also winning LAS academic awards this morning.  Altogether we represented English, Biology, Physics, History and Journalism! Go Pi Phi! I love having these women around me -  their influence pushes me to strive for more when it comes to schoolwork.  One of our sisters, Alyssa, is a double major in Biology and Chemistry and STILL HAS A 4.0 going into our senior year.  She is awesome and definitely inspires me - not just with her academics but with her integrity and devotion that she gives to all that she does.

Another inspiring sister is my very own roommate, Kim! Kim is a physics major who is basically super smart and amazing at life.  Kim did research on black holes last summer through the Butler Summer Institute, an opportunity that pays students to stay at BU and work with a faculty member on a research project.  She presented this work at a conference in California over winter break alongside her advisor, and all this work and attention has led her to be accepted in an OUTSTANDING physics summer research program at UCLA.  She turned down Harvard for this! Yeah, she's a big deal.  We also found out this week that Kim has been named a Goldwater Scholar, which is a hugely important scholarship and honor for science majors (click the link to read the BU press release about her!).  I am so proud of her!

Kim and I at the LAS Awards ceremony! It was not quite sundress weather... but I just can't wait!

Anyway, at some point I hope to make up a list of all the really cool things my Butler friends have done,  because whether they were honored this weekend or not., people are doing amazing things on this campus, and you should know about it.  

It is amazing what an outstanding education and a creative, critical, compassionate mind will do for you! Pursue both wholeheartedly.