When graduating seniors Justin Amann and Efia King first walked on campus at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, they made a promise that they would empower students to change their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to make a difference in the lives of the over 6,000 students enrolled at ESU,\u201d Amann said.<\/p>\n
A passion for serving students and a dedication to the university earned Amann the University Leadership Award at the spring commencement exercises on Saturday, May 9.<\/p>\n
The University Leadership Award<\/strong> is the highest non-academic honor a senior can receive for performance in demonstrating leadership in student officer positions and in other extra-curricular activities.<\/p>\n Like Amann, King wanted to make an impact at ESU. She received the University Service Award at the commencement ceremony. The University Service Award<\/strong> is presented to an outstanding senior who has demonstrated exceptional service to the university through on-campus extra-curricular activities.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring my time on campus I\u2019ve strived to advocate for the things I believe in such as education and equality,\u201d she said. \u201cMy desire is to make a positive impact on the people I encounter every day.\u201d<\/p>\n To be eligible for either award, a student must have attended the university for at least two years and have a cumulative grade point average of 2.60 or above.<\/p>\n Both award recipients were immersed in student life during their time on campus.<\/p>\n Amann, a history major from Bethlehem, Pa., was quick to join the Student Senate at the university, becoming Student Senate President by his third year. He was a board member of the Student Activity Association and served as chair in 2013 \u2013 2014.\u00a0\u00a0 He served on the following university committees: vice president of enrollment management search, president\u2019s strategic plan steering committee, one book, one campus, retention committee, and university senate and student affairs sub-committee. He was also a teaching assistant and most recently a student worker in the department of institutional research. Working closely with university administrators, he admits his voice was always the loudest in the room.<\/p>\n \u201cAt ESU, I found my passion in advocating for students who might not have had a voice,\u201d he said. \u201cI made a promise to myself when I first began my collegiate life that I would work to strengthen the future of college students to help them find their passions, face defeat and rise to their potential \u2014 ESU helped me make that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n King, a communication studies and sociology major from Philadelphia, Pa., was Chair of Student Affairs and Vice President of Student Senate.\u00a0 She was also involved with the Feminist Alliance, Pre-law Society, Residence Life, Orientation, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and the Go Green Committee. She also played a role in planning the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast and African American Heritage month.<\/p>\n \u201cI have always had a desire to help others and make a positive impact,\u201d she said. \u201cMy time at ESU has been a multifaceted learning experience that has allowed me to grow and develop into a better person.\u201d<\/p>\n ESU awarded a total of 970 bachelor\u2019s degrees and four doctorates, one of which will be conferred in August, in addition to 190 master\u2019s degrees, 127 of which will be conferred in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ESU Announces University Leadership Award and University Service Award Winners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-facebook","category-news-release"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12367,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12366\/revisions\/12367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}