UK Honors Outstanding Senior Students
LEXINGTON, Ky. (May 4, 2020) — The University of Kentucky has honored two senior students with the Otis A. Singletary Outstanding Senior Award at the virtual Lead Blue: Student Organizations Celebration and Award Ceremony on April 28. This year’s recipients were Michael Hamilton and Joe Walden.
The Otis A. Singletary Outstanding Senior Award was established in 1978 as the first award recognizing overall student leadership at UK. The award is named after former University of Kentucky President Otis A. Singletary.
Students nominated for this award have displayed outstanding leadership while attending the University of Kentucky, made significant contributions to academics and are dedicated to service through campus and community involvement.
Hamilton, a political science major in the College of Arts and Sciences, is the university’s student body president, a Lewis Honors College student and Chellgren Student Fellow, member of the DanceBlue Corporate Committee, voting member of the University Senate Council and member of Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity and Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society.
Walden serves as chapter president of Alpha Phi Omega co-ed service fraternity, is a Chellgren Student Fellow, program director of Alternative Service Breaks, a student ambassador for the Office of Undergraduate Research, a 2019 homecoming royalty nominee and a double-major in psychology and neuroscience in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The two finalists for the award were Sally Martin, a double-major in marketing in the Gatton College of Business and Economics and media arts and studies in the College of Communication and Information, and College of Health Sciences human health sciences major Lucy Bowers.
The Office of Student Organizations and Activities began the campus tradition of awarding and honoring individual students and student organizations by creating the Lead Blue Awards to recognize the successes and accomplishments of student organizations, advisors and student leaders.
To watch the virtual 2020 Lead Blue Award ceremony please visit https://www.facebook.com/UKGetInvolved/.
As the state’s flagship, land-grant institution, the University of Kentucky exists to advance the Commonwealth. We do that by preparing the next generation of leaders — placing students at the heart of everything we do — and transforming the lives of Kentuckians through education, research and creative work, service and health care. We pride ourselves on being a catalyst for breakthroughs and a force for healing, a place where ingenuity unfolds. It's all made possible by our people — visionaries, disruptors and pioneers — who make up 200 academic programs, a $476.5 million research and development enterprise and a world-class medical center, all on one campus.
In 2022, UK was ranked by Forbes as one of the “Best Employers for New Grads” and named a “Diversity Champion” by INSIGHT into Diversity, a testament to our commitment to advance Kentucky and create a community of belonging for everyone. While our mission looks different in many ways than it did in 1865, the vision of service to our Commonwealth and the world remains the same. We are the University for Kentucky.