A Calvin senior has been named Student Organization Leader of the Year for her role in founding and leading the Students for Compassionate Living (SCL).

Amelia Hicks, a philosophy and classical languages major and gender studies minor, received the honor from the Student Development Office at the annual Presidential Cookout. She was nominated for the award by her peers, leaders of the 50-plus student organizations at Calvin.

“I think it’s such an honor for Students for Compassionate Living,” said Hicks. “I’m really pleased that our organization has the visibility that would allow any of our leaders to receive this.”

She said the award also is an affirmation for her. “I was pretty surprised because I feel like I kind of fell into this position. Then our group morphed in such a way that I became a significant part of the leadership team.”

Hicks, who will graduate on May 20, is finishing college at an age when most people are beginning it.

Now 18, she was thirteen when she enrolled at Calvin. A somewhat peripatetic upbringing and a long illness combined to keep her out of school for long periods, and she studied at home.

I was basically teaching myself. I read my own algebra textbook. I read my own science textbook, and I read Faust. And a Calvin seminary student was teaching me Latin.”

When the seminary student moved away, Hicks wanted to continue her Latin instruction, and her mother (who also attends Calvin Theological Seminary) enrolled her at Calvin.

“At this point, I was still planning to go to high school the next year,” Hicks said. “I thought this would just supplement my home schooling. When I got to Calvin though, I really loved the class I took. I had excellent professor, and I felt I learned the material thoroughly in a way I hadn’t before… . And I was doing well, which was something I was nervous about because I’d only had a sixth-grade education.”

After taking part-time classes for a while, Hicks enrolled at Calvin full time in 2002.

“She may well be the most well-rounded student I’ve ever worked with in terms of her being able to integrate the theoretical concerns of philosophical discourse and the practical concerns of living the good life,” said SCL advisor and philosophy professor Matt Halteman.

Halteman added: “And it’s been a rare privilege to work with a student for whom the connections between what she thinks and how she lives and teaches others are so readily apparent.”

Students for Compassionate Living, chartered in May of 2005, promotes the redemptive treatment of non-human animals through lectures, films and the group’s trademark Compassionate Comestibles potlucks. The organization has not only grown significantly since its founding, it attracts sizeable groups to its events.

“At each of our potlucks, new people come-and they continue to come after they show up once,” Hicks said. “I’d say the organization started out with maybe five or so active members, and now I’d say there are 10 people who pull off all the events and a much larger constituency that supports those events by participating. Forty people attended the last film screening.”

The SCL has also had success in partnering with student organizations like the Social Justice Coalition and the Environmental Stewardship Coalition.

“Those three organizations and some other student organizations put on a big local food festival which drew hundreds of people. It was phenomenal,” Hicks said.

She was quick to praise her SCL co-leaders and Halteman.

"They’re wonderful people to work with. They’re all really motivated. And I feel like we work together in a really unusual way. Our group has meshed very well as an almost organic entity this year.”

Rachael Koeson, the coordinator of student activities and organizations at Calvin, praised Hicks.

“I met Amelia quite soon after I began this position and have always been impressed with her unassuming but powerful abilities to lead, encourage and organize,” Koeson said. “Students for Compassionate Living is a fairly new organization, and Amelia has been one of the primary driving forces for their overwhelming success as a group.”

Hicks, who plans to teach for a year in China before attending graduate school in philosophy, professed herself sad to be graduating and leaving the SCL behind.

“I feel like it’s the first community I’ve been a part of, and I was able to find a niche here and contribute to that niche.”