Student Life organization wins award for diversity

Student Life recently received an award for one of its programs devoted to diversity.

The Multicultural Awareness Conference, more commonly known as M.A.C. Lead, received the 2009 Mosaic Multicultural Education Award for its achievements. M.A.C. Lead is a conference organized by students to show leaders can leverage diversity among their peers.

The award recognizes programs that “promote multiculturalism within Student Life”, according to its sponsor, the Association of College Unions International. The award was given to M.A.C. Lead, after only the organization’s first year.

Jarrett Young, assistant director of Student Life, said that M.A.C. Lead has two main goals; to increase the amount of leaders from diverse populations on campus and to help student leaders to understand the impact of diversity to help their organizations make more of an impact.

Young said that he was very impressed by the success of the program.

“It was more successful than I thought it was going to be,” Young said. “We saw students that went to M.A.C. Lead take what they had learned to other leadership programs like LeaderShape.”

The Mosaic Award is the third award that Student Life has won this year. Leslie Sans, assistant director of Student Life said that CaboLead and Hilltop Leaders each received national recognition from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators in May and June, respectively.

It was not clear which universities St. Edward’s was competing against since the entry process just involves submitting an application. Previous winners of the award have come from Texas State, Sam Houston State and Rice University.

Young said that the reaction has been positive. But while Young said he was very excited about the award, he emphasized that winning is not the focus of Student Life programs.

“It was nice to get recognized, but it’s not why we do the work,” Young said. “The award was more important for the students in the sense that it lets them recognize the magnitude of what they’re doing.”

Others said they were proud of the award because of its meaning for the new organization.

“I was really excited about the award not only because of its prestige, but also because it was incredible for M.A.C. Lead to get that kind of recognition in its pilot year,” said Yara Ashrawi, a junior who was on last year’s marketing planning committee.

Young added that he was proud of the work M.A.C. Lead has done.

“We won because we had an awesome team of student leaders,” Young said. “They deserve all the recognition.”

 

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