Published 2012-09-16T10:23:00Z”/>

SpotlightJuniper Rose

Most kids get grounded in high school.

Maija Glasier-Lawson had to volunteer at a teenage crisis hotline for six months.

But her community service didn’t stop at high school punishment. Glasier-Lawson, 30, is now a graduate student at Chico State, and the opportunity to help others changed her perspective on her own life and constructed her future.

With more than 1,000 hours of work volunteered within the past 18 months, Glasier-Lawson’s achievements were recently recognized by the California State University system with three awards — the William Randolph Hearst/CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement, the Trustee Emeritus Murray L. Galinson Scholar award and the Rawlins Merit Award — granting the anthropology student a total of $9,000 in award money.

Community service wasn’t the only thing that contributed to her success, as the award nominations were also based on academic achievement and financial need.

“I was floored,” Glasier-Lawson said of finding out about the awards. “I recognize that I do a lot, but I don’t think I do more than other people do.”

Glasier-Lawson is an active member in the Council of Graduate Students and the Anthropology Graduate Student Association and was a graduate coordinator for the 26th Annual California Indian Conference in 2011.

She has also remained involved in the community despite an autoimmune disease that she has been dealing with since she was 18 years old and describes as being akin to a 12-year stomach flu.

The Hearst/CSU Trustees’ Award is granted to one student from each of the 23 CSUs each year, said Anne Brown, director of foundations and services at the CSU.

“They represent the best and the brightest,” she said.

In addition to the Hearst/CSU Trustees’ Award, there are six additional awards that are granted, including the Trustee Emeritus Murray L. Galinson Scholar award, Brown said.

A CSU selection committee chose Glasier-Lawson as the Trustee Emeritus Murray L. Galinson Scholar award recipient.

A fellow student in the anthropology graduate studies program said resilience and determination set Glasier-Lawson apart.

“Even if she bites off more than she can chew – well, she will find a way to chew it,” said Jeff Bryant, who worked closely with Glasier-Lawson in the anthropology program and is currently working with her on a film project.

Georgia Fox, the graduate studies coordinator of the anthropology program, nominated Glasier-Lawson for the Rawlins Merit Award. Fox recalls the day she met Glasier-Lawson.

“When she came to see me in my office I was immediately struck by her seriousness about graduate school and her irrepressible energy, enthusiasm and excitement about graduate education and being at Chico State,” Fox said in an email interview.

Glasier-Lawson is the only family member in her generation to attend college, and her family, of Washington state, is proud to see her achieve her own goals through helping others, Glasier-Lawson’s mother, Linda Glasier, said.

“As a parent who watched her not want to do homework sometimes and not be sure exactly of what she wanted to do with her life all the time, it is really fabulous,” Glasier said.

Glasier-Lawson’s first thought when she received the awards was that she would be pressured to step up her game, but others in her field have reassured her that all she has to do is keep doing what she’s doing, she said.

“I received enough money to completely pay for tuition this year,” she said. “I wish everyone could be honored like this for the work they do.”

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<strong>Juniper Rose can be reached at </strong><a href=”mailto:[email protected]”><em>[email protected]</em></a>