Three members of the Class of ’23 Win Breslau Awards
Three members of the Class of 2023 have been named recipients of Vassar’s 2021 Wendy Rae Breslau Award for their service to the College and the local community. The honors were bestowed on Leila Barnes, a history major from Hanover, NH; Chelsea Zak, a music and drama major from Woodbury, NY; and Julián Aguilar, a sociology major from Turlock, CA.
Barnes was president of Squirm magazine, Vassar’s sex and sexuality publication, and special events coordinator for the performance group Vassar Burlesque. She served as an intern at the Planned Parenthood office in Kingston, NY and was a member of the youth training team of the Abortion Access Program for Advocates for Youth, a Washington, DC-based organization that promotes education programs on HIV and AIDS. In the fall of 2020, Barnes helped to create a “mini-zine” that enabled students to express their anxiety about intimacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zak was honored for the work she did on campus and in the community in the wake of the pandemic. Last fall, she helped launch a program that promoted awareness on campus about the importance of mask-wearing and social distancing, and she worked with Vassar Vax Finders to help students locate vaccination sites in Dutchess County. She was the founder of Vassar Meet-Up, a campus organization that helped students form connections for COVID-safe pods.
Aguilar serves as contributing graphic designer for Vassar’s Grey Matters Journal and was a Web and Publication intern for the College’s office of Computing and Information Services. His Breslau Award citation mentions his advocacy for mental health programs and promoting equity and justice on campus as a senator for the Vassar Student Association (VSA).
About the Wendy Rae Breslau Award
The Wendy Rae Breslau Award provides an annual citation and prize to one or more Vassar students completing their sophomore year who, by their words and actions during the current year, have exhibited outstanding concern for the welfare and well-being of their peers and society in general. The award will take into account contributions made through both curricular and extracurricular activities or a combination of both.