Augustana College senior, Lucas simon (Notre Dame, Chicago, Ill.), was named an inaugural recipient of the James A. Sikich Scholarship. Simon, a three year letter winner on the Vikings basketball team, was one of just two students to receive the award, which was established earlier this year with the Illinois CPA Society. Simon majors in accounting and business management information systems and serves on campus as a career mentor, peer mentor for incoming freshmen, and community advisor. He also was the winner of the ICPA's Mary T. Washington Wylie Scholarship earlier in his career. "It's definitely an honor to receive this scholarship," Simon said. "It really feels nice to have hard work pay off and this is just a testement to that. I'm truly grateful for it." The Sikich Scholarship supports students who apply to the Illinois CPA Society (ICPAS) Accounting Scholarship Program. Students are selected annually based upon key criteria as established in cooperation with the ICPAS. This includes accounting students who have demonstrated leadership on campus, as well as students who are minoring in computer science or technology. This scholarship is named after James A. Sikich and its stated goal is to support deserving students who apply to the ICPAS Accounting Scholarship Program. These scholarships help make an accounting education accessible and attainable to bright, promising college students.

Augustana College student Marisa Carioscia completed a presitigous research internship at the Baylor College of Medicine. Carioscia worked under a medical illustrator to gain knowledge and skills in the field of medical illustratoin, and how to use those skills to create illustrations that can be used to visually communicate the outcomes of a specific surgery. Medical illustration is an essential resource used in the medicinal world that takes confusing subject matter and communicates it visually, making things easier to comprehend. Carioscia is marjoing in biology and graphic design, and will be a senior this fall. The Texas Medical Center Summer Research Internship Program is a full-time, 10 week research internship at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Texas Medical Center is the largest medical complex in the world. The heart of the program is located at two primary institutions: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine.

Augustana College announced more than 1,000 students were named to the Dean's List for the 2019 spring term. Students who have earned this academic honor have maintained a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher on a four-point scale for courses taken during the term.

The "Excellence in the Liberal Arts Award" has been generously gifted by Professor Dan Lee of the Religion Department, and his wife, Ruth Lee. The purpose of this award is to reward excellence in the liberal arts, including student academic achievement, amount of scholarly work done in the liberal arts including the humanities, achievement in co-curricular programs, and leadership and service both on and off-campus. Awards range from $400 to $4000 and may be used for international study or summer programs in the humanities.

Augustana College Theatre Arts Department will present The Three Musketeers by Ken Ludwig, adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas in the Brunner Mainstage Theatre Jan. 25-26 and Feb. 1-2 at 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 27 and Feb. 3 at 1:30 p.m. The cast includes Augustana students James Wheeler '22, Tristan Odenkirk '21, and Jarod Kovach '22 as the three musketeers, Elise Campbell '19 as Sabine, and Peter Alfano '21 as D'Artagnan, and MJ Mason '19 as Milady.

Senior Rob Williams had the distinction of being the only undergraduate accepted by the program committee to present his research at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. Williams, who is majoring in history education, presented a paper titled "Must They Write?" at the meeting in Chicago on Jan. 6.

Augustana College held its spring commencement ceremony on Sunday, May 21. Dr. Al Bowman, president emeritus of Illinois State University, delivered the commencement address. Around 480 students participated in the ceremony.

Caitlin Thom, a music composition and performance major, performed in her recital on Sunday, May 1 in Wallenberg Hall. Selections included "Sonatina" by Sergiu Natra, among others. Student recitals at Augustana College are a requirement for those pursuing a major in music performance. Other students pursuing a major or minor in music related to composition, general music, or education are highly encouraged to perform in a recital to showcase their progress and musicality.

Augustana senior Adam Gronewold was honored with the Abraham Lincoln Civic Engagement Award Nov. 17 in Springfield, making him a student laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois. The awards are presented for excellence in curricular and extracurricular activities to seniors from each of the state's four-year, degree-granting colleges and universities, and one student from the community colleges in Illinois. Each winner receives a Lincoln Academy Student Laureate Medallion, a certificate of achievement and $1,000.

Augustana College senior Bonnie Thornton presented her paper "The Politics of Collective Morality: Orchestrating the Natural Conservation and Historic Preservation of Blackhawk Watch Tower Park, 1917 - 1927" at the National Phi Alpha Theta conference in Orlando, Florida on Jan. 6-10, 2016.

Two research students, Ali Rabeh and Matthew Tuttle-Timm, working with Dr. Nathan Frank presented a poster, "Unbound Resonance of 26F," at the American Physical Society's Division of Nuclear Physics meeting in October 2015 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In addition, Dr. Frank and the students are co-authors on a recently published article, "Two-neutron sequential decay of 24O."

Four Augustana students were recently awarded an Augustana Transformative Learning And Service (A.T.L.A.S.) Grant which may be used to assist them in participation in a variety of service learning opportunities on the African continent.

Each year, Augustana College recognizes exceptional senior students who have made the most of their Augustana experience. Faculty members and coaches nominate these students each year to be featured in the college's "More Than I Imagined" series.

Twenty-one Augustana College students were elected to the college's Student Government Association (SGA) for the 2015-2016 academic year.

Forty-eight students at Augustana College, in Rock Island, Ill., recently were elected into the college's Phi Beta Kappa chapter. This national academic honor society recognizes scholarly achievement, character, integrity, and independence of mind. Members are elected by faculty. Election is less a reward for past success than a recognition of exceptional promise for future growth and achievement.

Nearly 600 high school seniors competed in Augustana College's annual Scholarship Competition on January 17, 2015. Students competed for $4,000 scholarships awarded by each academic department at Augustana. Winners of the scholarships will be notified by March 1, 2015.