Avila named International Balfour Award winner

At the Aug. 2, 2014, closing session of Balfour Leadership Training Workshop in Muncie, Ind., the Fraternity named Adrian Avila, NEW MEXICO 2014, its International Balfour Award (IBA) winner. Avila was in a pool of four finalists who vied for recognition as Sigma Chi International Fraternity’s most outstanding graduating senior. The IBA selection committee debated for hours before it named Avila the winner on the basis of scholastics, character, campus leadership and Fraternity service.
Avila, who graduated with a 3.95 GPA is a first-generation American citizen and will volunteer this fall in the Dominican Republic with the Peace Corps, where he will work with public health projects. He was his chapter’s scholarship chairman, risk manager, vice president and president. He helped develop a research and service project aimed at resolving community issues in the El Paso-Juarez borderlands. He also helped implement a mentorship program where he and his chapter brothers worked with at-risk eighth grade students in Albuquerque, N.M. 
On the Saturday of his IBA interview with the selection committee, he arrived in Muncie from New York City, where he had completed Columbia University’s Public Health Scholarship Program, the Centers for Disease Control’s Public Health Scholars program and an internship with the New York Academy of Medicine.
The other IBA finalists were: Connor Davis, OKLAHOMA STATE 2014; Grady Hepworth, IDAHO 2014; and Alex Wade, KENTUCKY 2014.