Dean’s Award Winners 2025

The Dean’s Award winners are selected by Dean of Students Vivian Garay Santiago in consultation with others at the College, and the award recognizes a select number of exceptional seniors who, through their activities, have been the embodiment of the College’s four cornerstones of Equity, Excellence, Community, and Service. It's among the most prestigious awards that a student can receive at the College regarding leadership and involvement outside of the classroom.

The College recognizes these exceptional undergraduates for their passion, dedication, hard work and commitment to the Oxy community and beyond. This year, eight winners were selected from the Class of 2025:

 

Excellence

Lizzie Friedrich

Major: Media Arts and Culture, minor: gender, women, and sexuality studies
Hometown: Seattle, WA

Lizzie is passionate about storytelling, representation, and the power of media to build community. With a strong interest in post-production and independent film, she has pursued creative work that centers equity, inclusion, and collaboration both on- and off-campus.

Lizzie has been a vital part of the La Encina yearbook team throughout her time at Occidental, serving as Editor-in-Chief for three of her four years and ensuring the creative and thoughtful preservation of student stories. As publicity manager and treasurer of the Womxn of Cinema and TV Club and vice president of Studio 1600, she has championed inclusive storytelling and supported fellow students in their filmmaking pursuits.

Off campus, Lizzie works as a festival coordinator for Slamdance, where she helped establish a new relationship between the festival and Occidental, which led to internship opportunities for Oxy students at the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival in West Hollywood. Through leadership, mentorship, and a deep commitment to representation, Lizzie has helped shape a more creative, inclusive, and connected campus community.

Caitlin Joy Cabanilla

Majors: economics and Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture
Hometown: West Covina, CA

At the heart of Caitlin’s experience at Occidental is a deep love for community. Whether through the Multicultural Summer Institute, Admissions, Neighborhood Partnership Program, Dance Production, PUSO and other roles on-campus, she has consistently sought to foster connection and belonging. This passion found a creative outlet in her work with SLICE, where she served as both orientation leader and marketing coordinator to design merchandise and plan events that brought students together.

As an economics major, Caitlin received the 2024-25 Betty Tracy Award for Outstanding Service to the department, recognizing her leadership as the president of the Women of Economics Club. The club became a source of empowerment and growth, helping her bridge her analytical interests with her commitment to community-building and creativity. Outside of campus, Caitlin has pursued several marketing and engagement internships, including a creative sync internship with SILO:Music, where she explored the collaborative process of placing music in film and television. These experiences affirmed her excitement for storytelling and strategy on a broader scale.

Upon graduating from Oxy, Caitlin hopes to pursue a career in Digital Marketing and Data Analytics where she can combine creativity and insight to foster meaningful connections across diverse audiences.

Service

Noah Aguilar

Major: economics, minor: Urban and Environmental Policy
Hometown: Santa Fe, NM

Noah’s time at Oxy has largely been shaped by his passions for food and for serving the surrounding community. His love for both was instilled in him by his parents, who are organic farmers who have always taught him to lead with kindness and generosity. At Oxy, this has translated into four years with the Excess Food Recovery Team (EFRT), including two years as the program coordinator. This role allowed Noah to redistribute excess food from Campus Dining and the outside community to people in need, as well as build a team of peers who advocate for more just food systems on campus. This team has helped harvest on-campus fruit trees, supported food-insecure students, and most recently, installed a campus community fridge.

Off campus, the same passion has driven Noah to continue this work in other parts of LA. During his freshman year summer, he interned at Uncommon Good, the urban farm in Claremont, through the UEPI Urban Agriculture Internship. There, he grew organic food for communities who lack access to healthy foods. In his junior year summer, he worked at the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments through InternLA. There, he helped establish FRESH SGV, a food recovery program encompassing 15 cities in the San Gabriel Valley that reduced food waste and food insecurity and ensured compliance with SB 1383, the state’s premier food recovery legislation.

Noah’s work at Oxy would not have been achievable without the support of his community, including his family, friends, the SLICE office, and especially the people at Facilities. He will carry their support and belief in him wherever he goes next.

Grace Fernandez

Major: psychology
Hometown: Mansfield, MA

Grace always knew she wanted to help and connect with others in and outside of her community. On campus as a member of the first cohort of peer health educators, Grace led workshops and training on mental health in classrooms, helped start a training for faculty on assisting students in distress, and created the wellness cart for students, which is seen in the library and Johnson Student Center.

She was involved in Professor Patricia Cabral’s psychology research lab, which focuses on Latina women wellness. Grace also conducted an honors project researching postpartum depression in Latina women. She received the Dr. Hopmeyer Excellence in Psychology Award and was asked to present her honors project to the Board of Trustees at Occidental.

Grace has used her time in the summer interning in many different areas. She performed research focusing on mental health apps at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, worked as a direct care counselor for children in the DCF system at Walker Residential Programs in Massachusetts, and interned at The Motherhood Center of New York with new and expectant mothers experiencing perinatal mental illness.

Following graduation, Grace will be attending Columbia University’s Mental Health Counseling Masters Program. She hopes to pursue a Ph.D. researching maternal mental healthcare.

Community

Zane Ndonye

Major: Media Arts and Culture
Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya

Throughout his four years at Occidental, Zane has been grateful for all his opportunities to be involved in the community. As a Media Arts and Culture major, he completed the Film Production track, which involved directing, producing, and acting in his short narrative, CHUO (2025), while assisting on his classmates’ senior comps films. He’s been a part of the Event and Media staff in the Athletics Department in addition to working at the Student Leadership, Involvement, and Community Engagement (SLICE) office as part of the Orientation Team and as an Orientation program coordinator, working on community events primarily for incoming students. During the summers, aside from Orientation, he has also served as an office assistant for the Athletics Department and Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, along with freelance videography and photography.

Outside of work and academics, Zane has been involved in several extracurricular programs that include serving as co-president and on the media team for the Pan-African Students Association, dancing with Dance Production, creating visual albums for PULSE, playing in intramural soccer and basketball, participating in several affinity organizations and student film festivals, and performing at BSA’s Apollo Night. Looking ahead, he plans to continue digital creation and performance in Atlanta, Georgia.

Koko Butcher

Major: sociology, minor: gender, women and sexuality studies
Hometown: Aiea, HI

Born and raised on Oahu, Koko grew up surrounded by a community of care and love. Their passion for leadership and advocacy has flourished at Oxy through being involved in athletics, admissions, research, and more.

Koko has been an athlete on the varsity water polo team for four years and served as the co-captain this past year. They led their team to their most successful season in over a decade and received the 2025 ALL-SCIAC Second-Team Award. Koko has also served on the athletics Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) committee for three years, where they have been able to advocate for the inclusion and safety of trans and queer athletes at Oxy and across the nation.

Outside the pool, Koko is a senior fellow at the Office of Admission, participated in Oxy’s Summer Research Program, studied and played water polo in the Netherlands, and has worked as a tutor in the Highland Park community. Koko also interned at the Institute for Human Services Inc., where they led a summer youth program at the Ka`ahi Women and Family Shelter in downtown Honolulu.

After Oxy, they are moving to San Francisco to continue working before applying to graduate school for a master's in social work. Koko is extremely grateful for their family, friends, teammates, coaches, and mentors, who have shaped them into the individual they are today.

Equity

Julia Carrigan

Major: Media Arts and Culture, minors: mathematics, Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture
Hometown: Glassboro, NJ

Julia Carrigan is a writer for the screen based in Los Angeles. She studied film and mathematics and found an acute love for classic literature at Occidental College. She also served as the president of the Muslim Student Association for three years, where she was blessed by God to serve as that community grew five-fold, a Muslim coordinator was brought on staff, and a 24/7 prayer room was created.

She also served on the Associated Students of Occidental College's Diversity and Equity Board where she founded the role of religious life liaison, working across departments and faiths to advocate for the integration and promotion of religious perspectives and accommodations on campus. Anything good she has done is a blessing from God alone and all of the credit, glory, and goodness belongs to Him. She is grateful to have been a vessel for His work in any small way.

Francesca Romero

Major: Diplomacy and World Affairs
Hometown: Walnut Creek, CA

Francesca is a first-gen Chicana born and raised in the Bay Area to a low-income family. Colleges are not built for students like her and therefore, Francesca acted as founder and president of the First-Gen and Low-Income Student Union. Additionally, she worked as an involvement program coordinator at SLICE and was one of only eight students in her class selected for the Obama Scholars Program, which trains students for a life and career committed to the public good.

Francesca wrote her DWA senior thesis on memory work as a form of resistance to feminicide in Latin America and received departmental honors and an award for best thesis on transitional justice.

Off campus, Francesca recently worked as a digital equity fellow at Michelson Philanthropies, researching the internet as a public utility in Los Angeles. She has also served as a policy fellow with CHIRLA and a housing and communities intern with LAFLA. Last summer, Francesca was selected to be a Yale Launchpad Scholar, a prestigious pre-law pipeline program. She hopes to become a movement lawyer and advocate for affordable housing.

Francesca is grateful for her friends, family, and mentors who have helped her throughout her journey at Occidental and beyond.