Macy Ashton Seymour of Leesburg, Georgia, is the recipient of the Fall 2018 President’s Award for Academic Excellence for the College of the Arts at Valdosta State University.

The President’s Award for Academic Excellence is presented to the graduating student with the highest grade point average in each of VSU’s six colleges — Harley Langdale Jr. College of Business Administration, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, College of the Arts, James L. and Dorothy H. Dewar College of Education and Human Services, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and College of Science and Mathematics.

VSU will celebrate its 226^th commencement on Friday, Dec. 7, and Saturday, Dec. 8.

Seymour will serve as the official banner carrier for the College of the Arts during the undergraduate commencement ceremony at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 8, on the VSU Front Lawn. She will graduate cum laude with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in communication, emphasis in public relations.

“I am honored to receive the President’s Award for Academic Excellence for the College of the Arts,” she said. “It is a reminder that hard works pay off and nothing is impossible. My time at VSU has cultivated great relationships, and I have been inspired by my fellow classmates and faculty. I am thrilled to lead my fellow graduates and friends in the commencement ceremony. We have worked hard for this moment, and we can finally say, ‘We did it.’”

As a student at VSU, Seymour served as an executive board member for the Public Relations Student Society of America and as a member of Lambda Pi Eta: National Communication Association. She was also a member of the Dean’s List during her time at VSU.

Seymour completed three mission trips to Wyoming, Honduras, and Peru. She said she was fortunate to be able to take two cross country road trips and become involved in her community, including become a Young Life leader and serving in her church, Greenbriar Church of Albany, Georgia.

“Aside from academics, traveling is my passion and coffee is my fuel,” she shared. “I want to spend my days loving people and serving those around me.”

Seymour plans to continue her education after graduation and pursue a master’s degree.  She is the daughter of Jackie Russ and Rick Seymour.

“As long as my work fosters joy, community, generosity, and simplicity, then I am on the road to success,” she said. “I am thankful for the road that has brought me to where I am now, and I am excited to see what the next journey brings. Eleanor Roosevelt said it best when she said, ‘The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.’”