BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Sandy Tun, a senior from Spring Valley, Ill., has been selected as Illinois Wesleyan University’s recipient of the 2008 Lincoln Academy of Illinois Student Laureate Award. The award recognizes outstanding academic achievement and extracurricular activities among college seniors.
A campus-wide committee directed by Associate Provost Roger Schnaitter selected Tun, a biology major with a pre-medicine concentration, from a pool of qualified Illinois Wesleyan students. Tun has served as a Bromenn Regional Medical Center volunteer in acute rehab, a summer intern with the McLean County Health Department and has participated in the Summer Undergraduate Medical Science Training Program at the University of Iowa and an NSF funded summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates program in ecology at Bradley University.
Additionally, she has presented her own research results at the Illinois Wesleyan John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference and served as a teaching assistant in courses in Parasitology and Invertebrate Zoology at the University.
Tun’s extracurricular involvements include co-coordinator of the IWU Red Cross Blood Drive and a team leader for ALANA, an IWU multicultural organization. She was awarded the Silas Purnell Minority Scholarship and is a member of Tri-Beta, biology honor society, and Phi Eta Sigma and Alpha Lambda Delta, first-year honor societies.
On Oct. 18, Tun attended an awards ceremony in the Old State Capitol in Springfield and a luncheon hosted by Governor Rod Blagojevich in the Executive Mansion, where she received a certificate, medallion and financial stipend from the Lincoln Academy.