{"id":41154,"date":"2025-02-27T13:35:25","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T18:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=41154"},"modified":"2025-02-27T13:36:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T18:36:58","slug":"the-14th-annual-celebration-of-purpose-and-nia-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2025\/02\/27\/the-14th-annual-celebration-of-purpose-and-nia-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"The 14th Annual Celebration of Purpose and NIA Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, Sinclair hosted the 14th Annual Celebration of Purpose: NIA Awards and GospelFest in Blair Hall Theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia is a Swahili word, meaning \u201cpurpose.\u201d The ceremony honors and celebrates the achievements of Sinclair students, staff, faculty and community members who live in their purpose through gospel music.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derek Allen, the chairperson and professor of hospitality and culinary arts, emceed the ceremony. Allen is also a past recipient of an NIA Award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Credit: Dion Johnson<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The City Day Community School Ensemble and the Imani A\u2019ccapella provided musical performances. At the end of the ceremony, the Celebration of Purpose committee invited the attendees to come on stage and sing along with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Credit: Dion Johnson<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The event was free for everyone, and food was provided at a reception beforehand, where attendees could mingle and meet committee members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

< Public Transit Costs Climb: RTA Announces New Fare Hikes <\/a>><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the awards were given out, Amaha Sellassie, associate professor and member of the Celebration of Purpose committee, led the audience in a libation ceremony. A libation is a drink poured out as an offering to a deity. In this case, Sellassie poured water onto a plant to honor those who had passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo Credit: Dion Johnson<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLibation is a way to honor those who went before us to pave a road to today,\u201d Sellassie said. \u201cIt also grounds us, especially at this moment. What is it that we\u2019re laying for those in future generations?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What followed was the audience saying the names of those who had passed, be it a friend or civil rights activist. The audience followed each name by saying \u201cAshe.\u201d, which means \u201cso be it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The winners of the 2025 NIA Awards are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student of the year Award:<\/strong> Christina D. Jones<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Staff Award:<\/strong> Robin Rucker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Faculty Award:<\/strong> Dr. Marita Abrams<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Diversity Champion Award:<\/strong> Dr. Jennifer Kostic<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Community Service Award:<\/strong> Erica Gist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Daniel B. Greene Award:<\/strong> Trinity Rice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Celebration of Purpose committee happens annually and asks that everyone continue to live in their purpose until they meet again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dion Johnson, Multimedia Specialist\/Intern<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, Sinclair hosted the 14th Annual Celebration of Purpose: NIA Awards and GospelFest in Blair Hall Theatre. Nia is a Swahili word, meaning \u201cpurpose.\u201d The ceremony honors and celebrates the achievements of Sinclair students, staff, faculty and community members who live in their purpose through gospel music.\u00a0 Derek Allen, the chairperson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":41161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2102,3522,2104,5528,2110,5390,5505,3603,3,2150],"tags":[1418,2466,1806,276,6194],"class_list":["post-41154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-dayton-news","category-entertainment","category-events","category-local","category-photos","category-sinclair-faculty-and-staff","category-society","category-tartan-news","category-world","tag-campus-life","tag-celebration","tag-nia-awards","tag-sinclair-community-college","tag-the-14th-annual-celebration-of-purpose-and-nia-awards"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/IMG_2720-Enhanced-NR-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-aHM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41154"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41167,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41154\/revisions\/41167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}