Best of: Chapman honors graduating seniors with Campus Leadership Awards

Chapman University’s 13th annual Campus Leadership Awards ceremony honors graduating students and six major senior award winners. Top row, left to right: Vivian Luong, Jasmin Sani, Javari Hunt. Bottom row, left to right: Ashley Nichols, Amber Osorno, Natalia Ventura

After three years of working until dawn on assignments, spending months tabulating data in research labs and dedicating hours to extracurricular clubs and organizations on campus, college students wait in anticipation and excitement for their shining moment: senior year.

The pandemic, however, brought normal senior activities to a halt. Stuck in quarantine, unable to connect with one another in-person, many struggled to muster the motivation to finish off their collegiate career. Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, seniors will have the opportunity to celebrate their graduation through an in-person commencement ceremony this August. 

Chapman honored a group of seniors who have shown a record of scholarly accomplishments, public service, commitment to social justice and leadership by awarding them at the Campus Leadership Awards. 

Vivian Luong - Cecil F. Cheverton Award

While some students spent quarantine counting the days as they binge-watched their favorite Netflix series, Vivian Luong, a health sciences major and recipient of the highest undergraduate student honor — the Cecil F. Cheverton Award — worked alongside her peers to develop an at-home handheld COVID-19 diagnostic test that used saliva samples as a part of the Medical Device Development Bootcamp at the Keck Graduate Institute.

Prior to the pandemic, Luong said her lifestyle was hectic as she juggled hospital volunteer shifts and classes, but the sudden halt brought about by quarantine forced her to reflect on what she really wanted to accomplish before she graduated.

Luong gave 11 research presentations since her freshman year through the Affects Regulation and Health Lab under the guidance of Chapman professor Brooke Jenkins.

“I was a nervous freshman with no statistical background or anything. (Jenkins) took a chance on me and she let me join her lab as a research assistant,” Jenkins said. “My sophomore year, she promoted me to lab manager and I’ve been lab manager ever since for the past three years.”

Luong was drawn to the healthcare field after interning at various hospitals in high school. While she has always appreciated the sciences, the human component of medicine is equally important for her.

Luong cited her experience being a supplemental instructor and developing a female weightlifting app for her entrepreneurship class as other notable memories. 

Luong plans on taking a gap year once she graduates to collect at least 1,000 hours as a clinical medical assistant so that she can apply for physician assistant school in the spring of 2022.

Jasmin Sani - Gloria and Julian Peterson Award for Distinguished Leadership

After moving from Texas to California halfway through high school, Jasmin Sani, a broadcast journalism and documentary and strategic and corporate communication double major, was looking for an easy way to make friends. She discovered her high school’s newspaper and soon found an unwithering passion for storytelling.

“There's a lot of reward that comes back from (journalism), especially after you put so much of your hard work and effort into what you do,” Sani said. “You're able to tell the community’s stories … serve as a kind of authority checker and also give light to controversial topics that need to be discussed.” 

Sani joined The Panther staff her freshman year and served as editor-in-chief her senior year, leading the way for the publication to receive 10 awards during her leadership. Sani was also the executive producer of Chapman News, which was separately recognized for four awards this year.

After having her study abroad trip in London cut short due to the pandemic, Sani reflected on feeling “robbed” of a typical senior year experience. 

“As I'm taking things off of my wall and moving out, I feel kind of empty,” Sani said. “As a senior, I don't feel like I've had those best four years of my life. But, the staff at The Panther has definitely brought me joy, as well as (with) Chapman News, so I'm just truly blessed to at least have those communities that I can align myself with.”

Apart from spending hours editing footage, writing articles and interviewing sources, Sani also co-founded the Iranian Student Cultural Organization. After counting the 64 flags that fly in the Global Citizens Plaza, Sani and her roommate Melieka Fathi, a senior political science and strategic and corporate communication double major, noticed there was no Iranian flag. Determined to create a community welcoming of Iranian Americans on campus, Sani and Fathi created the club, which currently has over 50 members.

Sani was selected as the recipient of the Gloria and Julian Peterson Award for Distinguished Leadership, which all students nominated for a Campus Leadership Awards were eligible to receive.

Starting June 28, Sani will begin her professional career in broadcast journalism as a Producer-in-Residence for the CBS-affiliated television station, 10 Tampa Bay, in Florida.

Javari Hunt - Ronald M. Huntington Award for Outstanding Scholarship

Javari Hunt, a public relations and advertising and anthropology double major and co-recipient of the Ronald M. Huntington Award for Outstanding Scholarship, has had a passion for entertainment, music, film and television since high school. Originally from Nebraska, Hunt discovered Chapman through a friend and appreciated the fact that the public relations and advertising program was housed within the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. 

Hunt discussed pushing through “imposter syndrome” as a Black woman throughout her collegiate career. 

“I'm not the first in my family to go to college, but definitely (I am the first to go to) one within such a big city,” Hunt said. “Imposter syndrome was riveting in me, coursing through the veins because you're nervous, and you really want to be successful.”

Hunt told The Panther her proudest accomplishments was her role as the 2019-2020 strategy director for Chapman’s National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) team. Hunt helped to lead students to create a comprehensive advertising campaign for Adobe, and despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, the team made it to the national finals for the first time in 10 years. The team, led by Hunt, were also awarded 13 Orange County Addy awards.

Hunt also presented her research on how race and ethnicity are portrayed in public relations and advertising curriculums at the joint conference for the American Anthropology Association the Canadian Anthropology Society in Vancouver in November 2019.

“It was really amazing because there were thousands of anthropologists there reporting on so many different topics,” she said. “I even got the chance to advise the anthropologists — people I've been reading about in academic journals.”

Hunt, a self-described “workaholic” who had three jobs during quarantine, said she was in a state of grief and denial when the pandemic first hit. Hunt told The Panther that it was challenging to live up to the pressures of being exceptionally productive and efficient during quarantine.

“There (was) that pressure that you need to be very productive during a time when it's a struggle,” Hunt said. “That's something I reflected on for the future … knowing my boundaries of what I can do and knowing that I'm not a machine and I don't have to be.”

Hunt will be working a full-time position as an editorial strategy coordinator at HBO Max and Warner Media starting June 1.

Ashley Nichols - Ronald M. Huntington Award for Outstanding Scholarship

After witnessing family members battle cancer as a child, Ashley Nichols, a first-generation biochemistry and molecular biology major, knew she wanted to pursue a lifelong career conducting cancer research. 

Starting her freshman year, Nichols conducted breast cancer research alongside Chapman pharmacy professor Hamidreza Montazeri Aliabadi and had her research published. Nichols also performed immunology research as a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow (SURF) at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida.

Nichols, who was also awarded the Ronald M. Huntington Award for Outstanding Scholarship, looks back with gratitude on the time she spent as a supplemental instructor for a general chemistry class and lab during the fall semester of her sophomore year.

“It helped me get closer to other students who are doing that position and to younger students who I was the (supplemental instructor) of,” Nichols said. “It also kind of helped me realize I probably want to teach later on in addition to doing research.”

She was also involved in the Women in Science and Technology club and Chapman STEMtors, both of which are aimed to help underrepresented groups become involved in STEM. Nichols felt a personal connection to those clubs, as she is a first-generation student.

Nichols plans to continue cancer research and receive her Ph.D. from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Amber Osorno - Paul S. Delp Outstanding Service Award

When Amber Osorno, a health sciences major and recipient of the Paul S. Delp Outstanding Service Award was growing up, she noticed that although a lot of her family members had health issues, they refused to go to the doctor. Confused by their reluctance, Osorno knew she wanted to be a doctor to build a sense of trust with patients.

“Medicine isn't just a pill,” Osorno said. “A doctor can help you and your problems at the end of the day and we will connect you to people who can help you understand yourself and understand why you're anxious.”

Osorno was also a lead researcher in Chapman professor Brooke Jenkins’ lab and developed a passion for research.

“(Jenkins) kind of just opened my world to the possibilities out there to do with research,” Osorno said. “I worked with kids who have asthma … and I learned so much from that research.”

Motivated by a desire to improve the healthcare system in the U.S., Osorno spent her time at Chapman leading the university’s American Medical Student Association as co-president, volunteering at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, working in an anatomy lab as a supplemental instructor and being a student scholar ambassador.

Post-graduation, Osorno will be working as a scribe in the emergency department at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, interning at Children's Hospital of Orange County and studying for the MCAT.

“I want to be a doctor, because there's a huge problem with our healthcare system in the United States,” Osorno said. “I think that people are being denied the right to health care, and I really want to make an impact and reform health care policy.”

Natalia Ventura - Outstanding Diversity Leadership Award

Natalia Ventura developed her passion for social justice while attending an all-girls Catholic high school that stressed the importance of service and giving back to one’s community. 

As a peace studies major and recipient of the Outstanding Diversity Leadership Award, Ventura said that her involvement in social justice activities at Chapman was sparked by a social justice retreat offered by Civic Engagement Initiatives that she participated in her freshman year. 

Ventura met Lucile Henderson, a senior communication studies major, at that retreat as a freshman, and co-founded the Chapman Activist Coalition about a year and half ago with her. The coalition was created to offer a central, organized place where activist efforts on campus could intersect.

“We had a lot of faculty backing us up at the beginning and then we were able to get more students involved,” Ventura said. “Now we're going to pass it on to some younger ones … We really hope that it keeps growing and expanding and we can create that culture of allyship and social justice on our campus.”

Ventura told The Panther that some of her proudest accomplishments as a leader of the Chapman Activist Coalition were planning the two transformative justice workshops that featured professor Elizabeth Sanchez, putting up the ethnic studies banner outside of Leatherby Libraries after threats from white supremacist groups and hosting the Asian American Pacific Islander Solidarity Rally on campus in conjunction with the OC Justice Initiative.

For the past two years, Ventura has also been a lead assistant at the Cross-Cultural Center and helped plan events such as Women’s History Month and Latinx Heritage Month. This past summer, Ventura also helped implement a mandatory Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training for all first-year students.

“My advice to freshmen is to go to a few cultural clubs and see what's out there, meet people of different backgrounds from you and you will learn so much in the process about your identity and what you can do with your own privilege,” Ventura said.

This summer, Ventura will be interning for the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, working on their Diversity and Inclusion Council.