Over 300 students were nominated for an award and celebrated at the 2026 Student Leadership Banquet, held on April 13. Hosted in Efroymson Family Gym, members of dozens of student organizations gathered together to recognize the efforts of their peers.
Amelia Black, a junior organizational communication and leadership major, received the Lori Ziemba & Ken Massaroni Breakthrough Leader of the Year Award, alongside Jake Darcy and Satiyah Hewitt. She also received the Student Service to the Student Body award from Student Government Association (SGA). Black was recognized for her various leadership roles as president of the Panhellenic Association, a former executive board member of Panhellenic sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, the student relations co-chair with Butler University Student Foundation and as an intern with the Office of Advancement.
“It’s truly so special to have a small campus that is so tight-knit that we all care so much about this place [and] want to give back to it,” Black said. “It’s really fun to lead alongside other people who care so much about a place that means so much to me.”
Jonathon Dowding, a senior journalism and marketing double major, received the Fraternity President of the Year award for his work with Interfraternity Council’s Lambda Chi Alpha (Lambda). Prior to serving as president, Dowding was Lambda’s recruitment chair and has also been involved on-campus as a three-year Student Orientation Guide (SOG) and vice president of Butler Institute for Sports and Entertainment. Lambda also won the Fraternity Campus Impact award. Dowding gave a lot of the credit to his executive board.
“I just got lucky where all my officers were really hard-working and driven,” Dowding said. “We were able to achieve basically every goal we set out [at the] beginning of the year. I definitely feel happy that we won, but I know it was my team, not me.”
Dowding said that having events like the banquet to recognize student excellence is important for campus morale and continuing to encourage leadership.
“Having a leadership award [event] like [the banquet] gives students confidence,” Dowding said. “Butler [gives] us opportunities to feel like we own the work that we do, we own the organizations that we’re a part of.”
Black corroborated this statement by adding that she enjoyed getting to hear about all the great work being done in parts of campus outside of her own realm.
“I really appreciated the willingness of Butler to appreciate us for those things and recognize us as students,” Black said. “Sometimes it feels like we don’t get recognized for the little things that we’re doing, so it’s really awesome to see that Butler sees all the work that we’re doing behind the scenes.”
Junior biology major Laney Elliott played a major role in planning and hosting the banquet. She explained that some of the awards required applications reviewed by the planning team, and others were nominated via committee, executive team or professor. Each award had different criteria and standards for nominees to meet.
Elliott applied for the position of student activities chair within SGA last semester, knowing one of the biggest responsibilities would be coordinating the banquet alongside a team of other students. They have been planning the banquet since January.
Jesse Wanzo Neader serves as the director of student activities and has been working with the office for a decade. The Office of Student Activities helped to plan the banquet alongside SGA, working more on the logistics side of things so that student leaders can concentrate on the awards.
Neader was extremely surprised and honored to receive the Faculty Service to SGA Award. The student organizers hid the recipient’s name from him, going so far as to black out the winner’s name in the script book Neader was given.
“To get [the award] was a true honor,” Neader said. “I really value my time working with SGA.”
Neader also mentioned Butler’s unique ability to foster student excellence on campus. The school is large enough to include over 200 student organizations and small enough to make it easy to ask for help or guidance. There are many opportunities for student leadership, and the Office of Student Activities wants to help encourage students to put themselves out there.
“One of our primary motivations is really pushing to develop [students’] strengths,” Neader said. “Not focusing on weaknesses, but really taking those opportunities and saying, ‘This is what you’re doing well’, and pushing our students to do better that way.”
In addition to distributing awards, the event also included the induction of the new SGA elected officials: president, vice president, speaker of the senate, and chief justice. Elliott serves as a senator of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) as well as the speaker of the senate in SGA. She encourages students to get more involved in SGA and step into a leadership role. Elliott also cited the student discontent with the updated airport shuttle system as a way students made their voices heard within SGA this year.
“We talked through it, we found a different way,” Elliott said. “We really try and listen to what other people are thinking.”