Recent achievements for the campus community were earned by Mollie Brummond, Caden Erickson, Frauke Hachtmann, Ben King, Nicolás Cafaro La Menza, Colleen Medill, Laura Muñoz, Adam Sauer, Steve Sherman, Korey Taylor, the Range Management Club and University Communication and Marketing.
Honors
Molly Brummond, assistant dean of student development and chief of staff in the College of Law, and Korey Taylor, assistant professor, were named as Nebraska State Bar Foundation 2024 Fellows. The Foundation Board nominates distinguished lawyers to be invited into Fellowship each year. Fellows are nominated based upon their integrity and character, distinction in the profession or community, contributions to the profession or the community and their contribution to the Bar Foundation.
College of Law students Ben King, Steve Sherman and Caden Erickson, won top honors at the Wayne State Taft Transactional Law Invitational, beating law school teams from across the nation in complex business negotiation challenges.
Frauke Hachtmann, professor of advertising, was selected to participate in this year's Association of National Advertisers' Educational Foundation Visiting Professor Program in New York City. Hachtmann will spend a week in New York City working with advertising professionals and going behind the scenes of agencies.
Colleen Medill, professor in the College of Law, received the Outstanding Legal Educator Award from the Nebraska State Bar Foundation at the Foundation’s 37th Annual Fellows Dinner. Medill has taught at the College of Law for 20 years and serves as director of undergraduate academic programs. She is recognized nationally for her innovative teaching techniques in the fields of employee benefits law, property law, and professional legal skills development.
Laura Muñoz, associate professor of history and ethnic studies, won the New Scholar’s Book Award from the American Educational Research Association’s Division F (History and Historiography). The biennial award recognizes quality research in the history of education, featuring books that could expand, complicate, shift or disrupt understanding of existing and emerging topics. Muñoz was honored for “Desert Dreams: Mexican Arizona and the Politics of Educational Equality,” which chronicles 75 years of Mexican American efforts to attain educational equality in Arizona, from its territorial period in the 19th century to the post-World War II era.
Adam Sauer, a junior majoring in electrical engineering, has been awarded a 2025 IEEE Power & Energy Society Scholarship Plus Initiative scholarship. This prestigious award recognizes outstanding students pursuing careers in power and energy engineering. The PES Scholarship Plus Initiative provides financial support and real-world experience to high-achieving undergraduate students who are committed to shaping the future of energy.
The Range Management Club's team placed runner-up in the Undergraduate Range Management Exam competition and third in the Rangeland Cup at the Society for Range Management’s annual meeting Feb. 10 in Spokane, Washington. Team members were Joseph Barenberg, Clara Freese, Cassidy Maricle, Sam Morrow and Sheridan Wilson, all of whom are grassland systems majors; Bobbi Guggenmos, who is majoring in agricultural leadership, education, and communication; and Abby Hirschman, an animal science major. Two students from Nebraska finished in the top 10 individually: Freese, who secured third place, and Wilson, who took ninth place. Read more.
University Communication and Marketing received the Staff Senate Presidential Citation Award for Excellence for the team’s work producing the “Home Again” television commercial. The honor was awarded Nov. 14 by Jordan Gonzales, president of the Staff Senate; and Hilary Butler and Carrie Jackson, the senate’s recognition committee co-chairs.
University Communication and Marketing also earned three Addy awards during the 2024-25 Nebraska Advertising Awards ceremony:
- The video “Intersection of Poetry and Art,” received a gold Addy. It featured a collaboration between Sheldon Museum of Art and Kwame Dawes. The video was produced by Aaron Nix, Curt Bright and Lauren Becwar.
- The “About Lincoln” website received a gold Addy. The site features the Lincoln community for all Huskers, including prospective students and their family members. Contributions to the website came from across the UComm team, including the Digital Experience Group.
- The video “Mizer’s Ruin: Transforming Design and Architecture in Rural Nebraska,” earned a gold Addy. The video showcases the four-year journey to build Mizer’s Ruin, a structure at Cedar Point Biological Station, by Jason Griffiths, associate professor of architecture, and students from the College of Architecture. The dwelling is built almost entirely from eastern red cedar trees that came from less than a mile from the site. The video was produced by Aaron Nix, director of video services.
Appointments
Nicolás Cafaro La Menza, assistant professor of agronomy and horticulture and Nebraska Extension, was elected the 2025 vice leader of the Applied Soybean Research Community. The organization is focused on fostering communication among applied soybean researchers worldwide to further the science that supports modern soybean production. Cafaro La Menza, who is based at the West Central Research, Extension and Education Center in North Platte, will become presiding leader of the community in 2026.
This column is a regular feature of Nebraska Today. Faculty, staff and students can submit achievements to be considered for this column via email to achievements@unl.edu. For more information, call 402-472-8515.
