Awards and honors

Joël Gallegos, assistant provost for international programs, recently received the Harold P. Josephson Award from the World Affairs Council of Charlotte.

The Office of University Communications garnered a big dose of recognition in an awards program that attracts entrants from throughout corporate and nonprofit communications and the media.

The UComm team received 10 prizes in the Communicator Awards program, an annual competition that this year attracted more than 6,000 entries from top communications agencies, Fortune 500 companies and numerous nonprofits. Other higher education honorees included Harvard, MIT and Notre Dame.

Eight students who represent a number of educational disciplines are this year’s recipients of the Thomas L. Reynolds Graduate Student Research Award.

The Reynolds Fellowship was created by its namesake, Associate Provost and Graduate School Dean Tom Reynolds, to assist with costs that are overlooked in other funding sources and to help students stay focused on their research goals. The Reynolds Fellowship provides up to $1,500 to doctoral students who have completed three semesters and to master’s students who have completed at least one semester.

The Office of Disability Services bestows its Accessibility Excellence Award to faculty and staff members who exhibit a strong commitment to accessibility- and disability-related issues.

For the first time ever, UNC Charlotte’s speech team has placed in the top 20 in a national speech tournament, competing against more than 150 teams from across the nation in the National Forensic Association’s championship tournament held in Santa Ana, California.

Fred Whitfield, president and chief operating officer for the Hornets Sports & Entertainment, is the 2019 recipient of the UNC Charlotte Distinguished Service Award.

The results are in, and UNC Charlotte’s 49er Rocketry Team achieved major success at this year’s NASA Student Launch Competition.

UNC Charlotte’s Police and Public Safety’s annual awards ceremony, held on May 17 in conjunction with National Police Week, had new meaning this year after the events of April 30.

The Aruna Quartet, a saxophone group that includes UNC Charlotte alumnus Andrew Schoen, won the Grand Prize in the 46th annual Fischoff Competition. Hosted by the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association, the competition is the largest chamber music competition in the United States. The Grand Prize-winning ensemble receives $13,500, a winner’s tour of the Midwestern United States and select appearances at the Emilia Romagna Festival in Italy this summer.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) bestowed its first-ever Civilian Medal of Valor posthumously to Riley Howell, who lost his life in the campus shooting. Members of his family attended the annual CMPD Awards Ceremony, Wednesday, May 15, to accept the honor.

Howell, who died during the April 30 campus attack, displayed “courage, sacrifice and honor” in his actions to charge the gunman, said CMPD Lt. Brad Koch.