The University of Alabama recognized six students and two faculty members for excellence on campus and in the community on Feb. 23 with the 2012 Premier Awards.

The Premier Awards honor individual members of the UA community who have displayed exemplary scholarship, leadership and service during their time on campus. Each of the five awards has strict requirements discerning eligibility of its applicants, who must write an essay and compile letters of recommendation to supplement the application.

William P. Bloom Scholarship

The William P. Bloom Scholarship Award honors one junior who excels in improving relations among diverse groups at UA. The award was presented to Emma Fick, a top English major student and University Fellow.

Fick interned for both Creative Campus and the English department’s Slash Pine Press, where she learned the importance of student collaboration and intergroup communication. With Creative Campus, Fick was responsible for cultivating communication between students of different spiritual backgrounds.

She was also directly involved with their Nest project, a community sculpture made from collected debris from the April 27 tornadoes. Her experiences with campus involvement contributed to her acknowledgement as the Bloom Award winner.

“Scholarship, leadership and service are important to me in conjunction with one another,” Fick said. “I think a self-serving form of leadership is wonderful and necessary for numerous aspects of life, but only when it is combined with broader humanistic concerns does it transcend shallow ambition.”

John Fraser Ramsey Award

The John Fraser Ramsey Award recognizes a junior who has served as a positive influence on his or her peers and has embodied an excellence of mind and character from a liberal education. This year’s award was given to Hannah Hicks, a philosophy and religious studies major with law school aspirations.

Hicks has held positions as ambassador for the College of Arts and Sciences and as an undergraduate teaching assistant. She is also a Blackburn Fellow and a member of many service and honor societies.

As executive director of cUltivAte Peer Mentors, Hicks inspires connections between upperclassmen and freshmen during learning seminars. Hicks witnessed her most meaningful experience at UA during a seminar focused on LGBT issues. Embodying the definition of the Ramsey Award, she promoted understanding and support between diverse groups on campus.

“The traits of the Premier Awards are important to me because they necessarily entail empathy, the ability to not merely accept another person and his or her views, but to openly embrace them,” Hicks said. “There is certainly no simple solution to social inequity, but I am convinced that these traits are the key to creating a better, more compassionate society.”

Morris Lehman Mayer Award

The Morris Lehman Mayer Award recognizes one senior and one faculty member who embody and contribute unwavering and selfless service, leadership and integrity to student life at UA. The student honor was awarded to Seema Kumar.

Kumar is currently majoring in biology and Spanish, but she plans to attend medical school upon graduation. Having previously won the 2011 William P. Bloom Award, she has shown continued excellence throughout her senior year.

Kumar displays dedication to UA through her involvement in Creative Campus as an intern, along with being a member of The Other Club, The XXXI and Mortar Board Society. However, she acknowledges the UA community for its support of her endeavors.

“During my time at UA, I’ve been lucky enough to work with professors and other faculty members that have been so truly passionate about their dedication to students,” Kumar said. “Because scholarship, leadership and service have been so engrained in my academic life, they’ve become an important aspect in my personal life as well.

“I’ve really seen how becoming an active member in your community can bring about a change, and that’s something that I’ll carry on in my life.”

Kenneth Ozzello, a professor of music, won the Mayer Award as a teaching faculty member. He is a renowned musician and conductor, including one appearance as a guest at the Carnegie Hall Festival.

As the director of the Million Dollar Band, he is in charge of developing the members of one of the most respected university marching bands in the country. Ozzello uses his passion for music to teach his students the importance of leadership and teamwork.

Although he fosters individual and group cohesion, Ozzello attributes much of the Million Dollar Band’s success to the environment.

“I have always felt that our band program has been able to enjoy so much success for such a long time because our administration supports our vision of the mission of the program,” Ozzello said. “The program has been able to continuously grow and flourish over the past 100 years because of the very bright students recruited to UA who lead from within the organization and who also generously give back to our community.”

Catherine Randall Award

The Catherine Johnson Randall Award focuses on a senior student who reaches prominence through an outstanding grade point average, rigorous course study and remarkable scholarly or creative ventures. This year’s winner was Daniel Preston, a mechanical engineering student.

Preston directs two engineering honor societies as an officer and tutors high school students while maintaining a GPA above 4.0. He also works as a teaching assistant for his minor in the Computer-Based Honors program, which he refers to as an important component to his success as a leader.

“The Computer-Based Honors program is the single most important academic asset to our University,” Preston said. “Undergraduates are exposed to rigorous projects early in their careers, and the product is an excellent group of students capable of graduate-level research before they reach their senior year.”

Preston produces research on energy conservation, waste reduction and productivity increases as the lead student at the Alabama Industrial Assessment Center. However, understanding the importance of his course work, he also appreciates the values that he learns through them.

“A true education would not be complete without learning to lead and to follow,” Preston said. “Volunteering completes the education by allowing the student to become a member of their community and truly foster school spirit.”

Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award

The Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award is presented to one man and one woman from the senior class, as well as one non-student member of the UA community. The award, recognizing character and service to humanity, is recognized nationwide and is considered to be the highest honor at UA.

The male recipient from the senior class was Xavier Neal-Burgin, a film production major. Burgin showed promise in his major when he was selected for a student internship program with the Cannes Film Festival last summer.

After the program, he received the Best 3-D Film award at the national Campus Movie Fest competition for his film, “Portrait of a Storm.” The short documentary, which recounts life after the April 27 storms, premiered in Hollywood, Calif. and won him a $5,000 grant from the International 3-D Society.

Burgin also excels in multiple other areas of UA life. He is a resident advisor, a member of several honor societies, president of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity and president of the UA chapter of the National Pan-Hellenic Council.

Although the Sullivan Award honors Burgin, he knows that he still has more to accomplish.

“Scholarship, leadership and service are a few of the qualities necessary to be successful,” Burgin said. “Along with ambition, drive, determination and borderline obsessive devotion to my craft, I’ve carved a small sliver of success at UA. Still, it is nothing in comparison to the steps necessary to reach a state of triumph in the real world. That is what I want. That is what I’m hungry for.”

The female student recipient of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award was Alexandra Tucci, an international studies and advertising double major. Tucci’s involvement on the UA campus is expansive, serving as a scholar in the Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility, a University Fellow and a member of the Mortar Board Society, The XXXI and the Anderson Society.

Tucci has also interned with Creative Campus. She was a main proponent of the popular “Quidditch on the Quad” idea, which brought the unification of diverse groups on the UA campus.

Tucci journeyed independently through Italy for a study abroad term, creating a film for her Documenting Justice class. The film, which focused on her Italian background and the difficulty of preserving history, taught her many lessons in determination and self-empowerment that she spreads to many other facets of her life.

“The pursuit of scholarship, leadership and service are the key components of an integrity-driven life,” Tucci said. “If I had to pick one lesson I have learned at UA, it’s that in order to live a life of character, we have to live a life dedicated to characters, focusing on extending beyond oneself in unity with others.”

Dr. James W. Thompson, executive director of UA’s Brewer-Porch Children’s Center, was the non-student winner of the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award. Since 1996, Thompson has served as the leader of Brewer-Porch, a national award-winning treatment program for children with special needs and mental disorders. Through this program, he is also able to teach students through service.

“Working in an environment that embraces an interdisciplinary approach to treatment and education has enabled me to fully appreciate scholarship, leadership and the service component of the University,” Thompson said. “The experience of interacting with teachers, nurses, psychologist, doctors, social workers, therapist and others on a daily basis provides an insight into teamwork that is necessary to accomplish the goals of a complex mental health environment.”

Thompson, who holds two degrees from UA and has developed the Brewer-Porch program over the past 32 years, knows the value of receiving such a high honor as the Sullivan Award.

“The defining qualities of the Sullivan Award are the foundation of an effective educator and successful administrator,” Thompson said. “These qualities are important to me because they foster opportunities to inspire others, and they provide a vision with the possibility and hope that lives will be enriched.”