English Majors Win President's Student Leadership Award
The Department of English is pleased and proud that two of our outstanding English majors received University-wide recognition: Bernadette Rechek (above left) and Nadia Testut (right) won 2025 President's Student Leadership and Service Awards. The award recognizes students for their exceptional leadership and service to the University of Minnesota and its surrounding communities.
Bernadette Rechek is a junior double majoring in English and Developmental Psychology. In spring 2024, Rechek and other students who met in Professor Katherine Scheil's Honors Shakespeare class founded a popular new student club, the Minnesota Shakespeare Society, to encourage fun engagement with the playwright. Rechek serves as the first club president for the group, which has sponsored discussions, games, and excursions to theaters. Rechek is also involved with the U's student Dance Collective, where she regularly choreographs 20-30 dancers for the club's semester's end performances. Interested in educational policy, Bernadette volunteers as a student network member for the national Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression to teach students from across the political spectrum about civil discourse and their legal rights to express themselves (notably at the UMN Office of Student Experience's Partners Across Student Leadership conference). The honors student is a section leader for CLA First Year Experience classes and interned for the Minnesota State House of Representatives in spring 2025.
Nadia Testut is a senior majoring in English with a minor in Creative Writing. Enrolled in the DirecTrack to Teaching program, she has extensive K-12 experience as a teaching assistant and classroom volunteer. Since September 2024, Testut has been a student representative with the University of Minnesota Undergraduate Advisory Board. She is president of the Undergraduate Student Board in the College of Education and Human Development, as well as undergraduate student representative on the CEHD Alumni Board. Testut is currently enrolled in the Tom Burnett Advanced Leadership Program, a University of Minnesota mentoring program focused on identifying and nurturing future leaders in business or the nonprofit sector. She has worked at the University of Minnesota Visit Office for over three years, since April 2024 as an events intern helping to coordinate over 60 events for the Office of Admissions. She also worked with Orientation and Transition Experiences as a Welcome Week intern, assisting with logistics and facilitating training for the annual program serving 7000+ incoming students. Testut is headed to the University of Connecticut Storrs for a Master of Arts in Higher Education and Student Affairs.
