Source: Myra Gordon, 785-532-6276, mygordon@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Katie Mayes, 785-532-6415, kmayes@k-state.edu

Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009

K-STATE STUDENT, STAFF MEMBER TO RECEIVE HONORS FOR THEIR DIVERSITY EFFORTS

MANHATTAN -- The work of Kansas State University's Careem Gladney, senior in accounting, and Rebeca Paz, coordinator of the PILOTS Program, in helping multicultural students get the most from K-State will be recognized with Commerce Bank Presidential awards.

Gladney, Manhattan, will receive the Commerce Bank Presidential Award for Enhancing Multiculturalism. The award, first given in 1997, recognizes outstanding individual contributions by a student. He will receive a plaque and $500.

Gladney, a graduate of Wichita Southeast High School, has been actively involved with K-State's School of Leadership Studies and serves as president of the Kappa Tau chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., which organized the Black and Gold Pageant and the Voteless People is a Hopeless People voter registration campaign.

"Careem has just done an outstanding job in so many leadership positions over the years. He has touched many lives and changed the thinking of so many people when it comes to the issues of diversity, multiculturalism and inclusion," said Myra Gordon, K-State associate provost for diversity and dual career development. "He is a very special young man who has made use of every opportunity to craft himself into a superb student, an exceptional campus leader and a role mode for any of our K-State students."

Rebeca Paz, coordinator of K-State's PILOTS Program, will receive the Commerce Bank Presidential Faculty/Staff Award for Distinguished Services to Historically Underrepresented Students. The award was established in 1978 to recognize outstanding individual contributions to the development of high-quality education for students of color at K-State. It includes a plaque and $2,500.

"Rebeca Paz is an extraordinary human being who has a very quiet, but totally effective, way of advancing diversity and helping multicultural students on this campus," Gordon said. "With exquisite precision and finely tuned cross-cultural skills, Rebeca is able to find out what is needed in the case of each student to guide him or her toward academic success," Gordon said. "There are so many students who say if it were not for Rebeca Paz, they wouldn't be at K-State today. Period."

Paz and Gladney will be honored at a reception from 3:30-5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20, at the K-State Alumni Center.