2023 Friends and Family Awards

Dean Mark E. Button's remarks from the 2023 Friends and Family Awards Reception:

Great teachers change lives. This often happens, not only through amazing lectures and inspiring insights, but by faculty and advisers being fully present in a student’s life—offering a caring and encouraging word; recognizing a talent a student does not see in themselves; presenting students with opportunities they did not know existed; building connections that can last a lifetime.  

This day each year provides our UNL community with the opportunity to recognize, honor, and thank the dedicated faculty and staff across the University of Nebraska–Lincoln who have had a significant impact on the lives of students. 

In the College of Arts and Sciences, our mission—to cultivate curiosity and critical thinking, facilitate student growth and success, and support life-long learning through all branches of the liberal arts and sciences—is carried out by dedicated and hard working faculty every day.

These faculty have translated their passion and expertise in their field of study into excitement within their students for the pursuit of new discoveries and the creation of new ways of knowing and communicating with others.