Kansas State University

K-State First Awards

Our program offers a variety of awards to students, faculty, and staff for their work to foster belonging and engage in student success work each year. 

First-Year Advocate Awards

The First-Year Advocate Award celebrates faculty/staff and students who:

• Engage with first-year students.
• Help students succeed academically.
• Build community.
• Show they value equity and inclusion.
• Empower their students.
• Help their students find purpose and achieve their goals.

Nominations for the First-Year Advocate Award are due by January 31, 2024 at 5:00 pm. Successful nominations will demonstrate how the nominee meets the above listed criteria. Nominations may be submitted in a variety of formats. For example, nomination materials could be an essay of 500-600 words, a video with specific testimonials, or a PowerPoint presentation with images and quotes related to the nominee’s impact.  

For more information about the 2022 award winners, visit K-State Today.

K-State First Book Awards

K-State First Book Awards celebrate the common experiences shared at K-State with the common book. The award winners all work hard to foster student engagement, enhance students' educational experience, expand the consideration of new ideas, values and concepts in the classroom and in the university community, and use creative applications of the themes from the common book of the year. The K-State First Book program offers several awards, including the Bill Miller and Debbie Leckron Miller K-State First Book Scholarship, a Student Group Award, and a Faculty/Staff Award. 

The 2022 Bill Miller and Debbie Leckron Miller K-State First Book Scholarship winners are Marquel Denstedt and Matthew Lane. Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences or (MANRRS) received the Group Award. Andrew Smith is the 2022 Faculty Award winner.

For more information on how to apply and to see previous award winners, click here. 

K-State First Bosco Family Scholarships

This scholarship is awarded thanks to the generous contributions of the Bosco Family, Bill and Debbie Miller, and other donors, for participation in our high impact CAT Community program. Our five scholarship winners this year are Carson Corwin, Lilyanna Cruz, Veronica Fuendling, Joseph Hernandez, and Grace Lucas. 

K-State First Special Recognition Award

Each year, our team recognizes someone at K-State for their exceptional university leadership and unwavering dedication to first-year students. These individuals have been essential to the success of our program throughout the years and we value their passion for and contribution to our K-State First mission.

2021 Awards Celebration

K-State First normally holds an annual awards dinner to celebrate our winners and their accomplishments. This year, due to the pandemic, we created a virtual awards video instead, which highlights the success of our award winners with excerpts from their award-winning submissions and praises from their nominators.