Last Year's Winners
2008 President’s Award Recipients
Outstanding Community Impact Award (Student)
Karishma Saini has been very actively involved with community service both at Georgia State University and in the metro Atlanta community. She has held leadership positions in the Student Government Association, Gamma Sigma Sigma National Service Sorority, Panther Breakaway, and is a member of Intercultural Ambassadors. Karishma volunteers for Project Open Hand, American Cancer Society, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, St. Francis Tale, and The First Aid Health Center. Her future goal is to open her own charity health clinic to those that cannot afford or lack access to healthcare.
Outstanding Campus Impact Award (Student Organization)
The Rialto Student Ambassadors seek to educate, entertain, and inspire the Georgia State University student body through diverse cultural arts programming such as GSU Idol, the International Thanksgiving Feast, Rialto Week 2008, and showcasing international performers. The Ambassadors also work in the metro Atlanta community at Hamilton E. Holmes Elementary School in tutoring, mentoring, and creating hands-on activities that enrich student learning and knowledge.
Outstanding Faculty Member Award
Over the last ten years, Professor Gallagher has used community service exercises in the classroom as a means to bring about intercultural learning among his students by creating positive attitudes toward community participation, increasing awareness of social issues, and connecting students’ theoretical classroom learning to real world experiences. To date, over 400 students in 8 classes have completed approximately 1500 hours of community service to various non-profit social service providers.
Outstanding University Program Award
The Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic began operation at Georgia State University in 1992 and provides federal tax controversy resolution services to low-income taxpayers in Georgia who cannot afford legal representation and often face multiple problems with health, job, and family. Over the last five years the clinic has filed more than 170 petitions in the US Tax Court involving disputes over a total of more than $800,000 in proposed tax deficiencies and eliminated approximately 80% of that amount.
Outstanding Community Partner Award
The Enchanted Closet began as a community service project that provided donated prom dresses to metro Atlanta high school girls. Georgia State University has hosted prom dress collection drives and boutiques from which teenage girls would select their dresses with the help of a personal shopping consultant. As they have grown, their mission has expanded to physically, mentally, and emotionally outfit Metro Atlanta high school girls from low-income families through programs that prepare them for social and professional milestones. These girls are taught dining and social etiquette, budgeting, and how to create task lists and timelines, and some are mentored and trained in leadership and social entrepreneurship.
