The UNI Graduate College established the Inspiration Award to be awarded on an occasional basis as deemed appropriate to a graduate student who has successfully overcome extraordinary challenges and/or hardships while pursuing graduate study at UNI. This award was established in Fall 2006 in honor of the extraordinary courage, determination and tenacity of our own graduate students from our partner institutions in New Orleans, Louisiana, whose lives and whose families lives have been so severely traumatized and disrupted by the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.
The first recipients of this award, presented on August 24, 2006, at the 2006 Graduate Student Orientation, were UNI graduate students from our partner institutions: Xavier University, Dillard University, and Southern University in New Orleans who are returning to complete graduate study in Fall 2006 or who graduated during the 2005-06 academic year.
“The students honored worked through the difficulties that Hurricane Katrina brought into their lives, all while keeping up their studies,” said Graduate College Dean Susan Koch. “We wanted to let them know that we see them as an inspiration.”
