Taylor Livingston, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, has received the 2016 Boka W. Hadzija Award for Distinguished University Service by a Graduate or Professional Student.
The Boka W. Hadzija Award recognizes a graduate or professional student with outstanding character, scholarship, leadership and service to the university. Livingston and other outstanding award recipients were recognized at the Chancellor’s Awards Ceremony on April 20. The Graduate School recognized Livingston at the 18th Annual Graduate Student Recognition Celebration, held April 14.
Livingston has provided leadership and service to more than a dozen campus efforts, including the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, where she is currently vice president of internal affairs and has also served as the teaching assistant/research assistant advocate, appropriations committee chair and anthropology department senator. Additionally, she is the graduate student representative to the Faculty Council and is active within her academic department.
“From the start of her graduate studies, Taylor Livingston has distinguished herself as a dedicated citizen of the university,” a nominator wrote. “She has demonstrated outstanding leadership and service to Carolina in general and to her home department, anthropology, in particular.”
Another nominator said Livingston “has more experience teaching than any current graduate student in our program.” She has been a teaching assistant from her first year as a graduate student at Carolina. For two years, the nominator said, she was asked to serve as a mentor and coach for the new graduate students who were to be teaching assistants in large classes. Livingston set up a daylong teaching workshop to discuss teaching strategies and for the rest of the semester would then visit each graduate student discussion section to observe and offer feedback.
Nominations also recognized the quality of her research: Livingston gave presentations at three national organizations’ meetings in 2015 alone. “Taylor Livingston is tackling a dissertation that is critical to our understanding of the prenatal resources that make a difference in health outcomes for infants,” a nominator said.
Boka W. Hadzija was an award-winning professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy; she established the award in 2000 in honor of her students. Hadzija, who died in 2013, is remembered by students and faculty for her strong mentorship, her generous support of students and her outstanding leadership.