Student experience and achievement

Logan Brtek and Alex Nelson, both KU School of Law graduates, have been honored by the National Association of Legal Advocacy Educators, becoming the first KU Law students to receive the national honors. The awards recognize excellence in competition performance, academic achievement, leadership and service.

Levi O’Connor, a senior in psychology from Louisburg, has been selected to receive the Beinecke Scholarship Program award for the 2026-2027 academic year. Each year, 20 students from across the nation receive $30,000 to be used for graduate study and $5,000 in their senior year. O’Connor is the first Jayhawk to receive the scholarship.

The KU Department of Mathematics recently recognized its undergraduate and graduate students and faculty for outstanding academic and teaching achievements. Graduate summer scholarships and research assistantships were awarded to 25 graduate students. Academic year 2026-27 scholarships were awarded to 77 undergraduates.

University of Kansas School of Law students provided more than 2,300 hours of free legal services during the 2025-2026 academic year, with 48 earning a spot on KU Law’s Pro Bono Honor Roll.

Lauren Reimer, a 2026 University of Kansas graduate in microbiology, is the winner of this year’s James Blackiston Memorial Graduate Fellowship from the KU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi. She is the chapter’s nominee for a national Phi Kappa Phi fellowship.

The American Constitution Society has recognized the University of Kansas School of Law and one of its student leaders with national honors for leadership and programming.

What started as a fondness for libraries and a curiosity about Korean hangul — the writing system and alphabet used for Korean language — has grown into a calling. University of Kansas graduate Daphne Tibbetts has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Rubinstein/Mason Award to support graduate study in library science, with her sights set on becoming a Korean studies librarian.

The Department of Theatre & Dance's creative, public-facing work and scholarship culminated in an awards ceremony earlier this month where 30 Jayhawks received departmental honors, including students from the Lawrence, Topeka, Overland Park, Shawnee, Wichita and Kansas City areas.

University of Kansas students Naomi Galindo and Dagan Fultz have won the graduate and undergraduate divisions of the contest for their entries in the annual Laird Essay Contest, sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies.

University of Kansas students recently had the opportunity to participate in a NATO simulation exercise, presented in cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allied Command Transformation. The experience was part of a Model NATO class offered through the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.