VSU Honors Rachel Epps With College of Education and Human Services Highest Academic Achievement Award

VALDOSTA — Rachel Naomi Epps of Nashville, Georgia, is the recipient of the 2021 James L. and Dorothy H. Dewar College of Education and Human Services Highest Academic Achievement Award at Valdosta State University.

“Winning this award means the world to me,” she said. “I never expected to receive this award, so I feel incredibly honored to be given this distinction. It means a lot that I have been able to make my family and loved ones proud.”

The James L. and Dorothy H. Dewar College of Education and Human Services Highest Academic Achievement Award is presented to a student with a record of academic excellence and distinguished service inside and outside the classroom.

Epps will graduate summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Education in Communication Disorders during VSU’s 231^st Commencement at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 7, at Bazemore-Hyder Stadium. She plans to continue her education at VSU and pursue a Master of Education in Communication Disorders.

“I want to continue learning for the rest of my life, and my hope is to continue having educational experiences long after leaving VSU,” she added.

Epps dreams of becoming a school-based speech-language pathologist who specializes in working with children with autism and children with fluency disorders. Her supportive family includes mom Michelle Epps and dad Randall Epps.

As a student at VSU, Epps was a member of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association and a volunteer crisis counselor with Crisis Text Line.

Epps’s commitment to academic and service excellence resulted in her being named a Zell Miller Scholar four years in a row and earning repeated Dean’s List honors, the 2017-2021 Chaparral Boats Inc. and Robalo Boats LLC Scholarship, the 2018-2019 Sallie Hutchinson Scholarship, and the 2017-2018 Colquitt EMC Scholarship. She was named the Spring 2021 President’s Award for Academic Excellence recipient for the James L. and Dorothy H. Dewar College of Education and Human Services, which is presented to a graduating student with the highest grade point average in each of VSU’s six colleges.