At a ceremony Thursday night, NAU leadership, led by President José Luis Cruz Rivera, honored the winners of the President’s Prize, Gold Axe award and Distinguished Seniors of the Class of 2025.
This year’s class is composed of 23 Gold Axe winners, including two President’s Prize winners—the highest honor awarded to undergraduate students. Additionally, 10 students were honored as Distinguished Seniors of their colleges.
“All of these students have shown incredible resilience and determination to arrive at this point in their academic and personal journeys,” Cruz Rivera said. “They are exceptional role models, they have excelled in their studies and they are committed to serving others, using all they have learned to shape a brighter future.”
The President’s Prize winners are:
- Ayejah Rivera is a psychological sciences, sociology and Spanish major who studied in Spain, Puerto Rico, Ireland and the Alps, which she said made her NAU experience unforgettable. She is a four-year member and now president of the Latine Student Union and played a critical role in putting on the inaugural Hispanic and Latine Cultural Night, which took place earlier this month.
- Tracey Yazzie is a nursing major; the first-generation transfer student also was named a Udall Scholar and a Cobell Scholar and is part of the American Indian Program cohort in nursing. In addition to those national scholarships, she did significant community service both mentoring and promoting access to healthcare on the Navajo Nation and throughout northern Arizona.
Gold Axe winners came from a pool of applicants selected by a campus committee. The program is led by the Office of Leadership & Engagement and co-sponsored by NAU Alumni and ASNAU. Distinguished Seniors are selected by their colleges.
See below for all the winners and the college’s standard bearers
Gold Axe
Distinguished Seniors
Standard bearers
