Outstanding Student of the Year
Every year, the College of Liberal Arts asks each department to select its outstanding student(s) for that year- students who possess the passion and creativity for new discoveries and scholarship, students who demonstrate independence of thought and action in the pursuit of knowledge, and students who exemplify excellence.
The Department of Music has chosen the following as students who embody these qualities and so much more. Thank you for all your hard work and contributions to your department. You make a difference at UAF.
Congratulations to our 2026 Outstanding Students of the Year!
Most Outstanding Music Student
"I'm excited to become a future educator. One of the things that the music education
program has done really well, I think, is getting hands-on experience teaching for
students. I think in a lot of programs in the country, you don't really start teaching
until your senior year... The class I took last semester was able to teach at the
Bunnell House, the developmental preschool, and we were able to teach music lessons
through there, and that's been really eye-opening to me to see how much I really like
teaching."
Most Outstanding Freshman
"I basically came into [the music program] as a novice, even though I've been doing
music ever since middle school. I thought I was out of place because of my lack of
ability, but I think other students have really felt that way. I kept pushing through,
and then I kept on learning many new things. That sounds intimidating and discouraging,
but the amount of skill that is there from the professors and the other upperclassmen
students... you're thrown into an environment of very highly skilled individuals that
kind of really humbles you, but you become the very skilled individual at the end."
Most Outstanding Graduating Senior
"One thing that really stands out to me about my time here at UAF was the semester
of my junior year... I did a lot of singing that semester, and we took the opera to
Costa Rica in May. It was just such a cool experience to get to go down there, to
get to go to their universities, and to perform, and to do it with all of the people
that I've been with since freshman year, a lot of them. Freshman, sophomore year.
It was... a lot of my friends, and we got to go down there, and have fun. It was just
such a cool way to end junior year."
Always Outstanding
2025-2026
-
- Cody Webb
- Adrian Ducat
- Olivia Buzby
2024-2025
-
- Olivia Buzby
- Cody Webb
- Ben Lucia
- Evelina Savonin
2023-2024
-
- Ben Lucia
- Zachary Williams
- Jia Jia Maas
2022-2023
-
- Michael Austin
- Jia Jia Maas
2021-2022
-
- Jia Jia Maas
- Madeline Andriesen
- Benjamin Anderson
2021-2022
-
- Jenna Dreydoppel
A
-
- Benjamin Anderson
- Madeline Andriesen
- Michael Austin
B
D
-
- Jenna Dreydoppel
- Adrian Ducat
L
-
- Ben Lucia
M
-
- Jia Jia Maas
S
W
-
- Cody Webb
- Zachary Williams