ACUI Honors Victoria Angis with Butts-Whiting Award for Decades of Leadership
Victoria Angis, Castleton University’s longtime associate dean of students who retired in 2021, was recognized with ACUI’s highest honor, the Butts-Whiting Award, for her significant contributions to the college union and student activities movement. Angis, who spent more than 40 years at Castleton, received the award during a live ceremony at the Association’s 2023 Annual Conference in Boston.
In announcing the honor from the conference podium, Debra Hammond, executive director of California State University–Northridge’s University Student Union, said Angis exemplified what it meant to teach and mentor, while always asking, “How does this benefit our students?”
“She would never consider herself a ‘sage on the stage,’ but rather the ‘guide on the side,” Hammond said, adding that Angis exemplified the reference by American leadership expert John Maxwell, that “students don’t care how much you know—until they know how much you care.”
Angis first found her home in the student union as a sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, attending an inaugural meeting of a student organization for planning events, as the only woman at the meeting. She would go on to become its treasurer, and then president, before landing a job as the student union’s first woman building manager.
At Castleton, she most recently served as associate dean of students, but prior to that she served as assistant dean for campus life, interim director of admissions, Title IX coordinator, and interim director of institutional research. During that time, her responsibilities varied and included student government, commencement, cultural affairs, homecoming, veterans, and a multitude of other programmatic and operational roles, including overseeing a major renovation of their campus center. Upon her retirement, spaces, including a student lounge and a meditation and reflection, as well as an endowed scholarship were named in her honor.
s a longtime member of ACUI, Angis has served as a program chair, conference chair, regional representative, recreation coordinator, women’s concerns coordinator, and conference host. She had a career of distinction on the regional level and has been recognized with the Regional Directors Award and the Regional Distinguished Service Award twice. On the international level, Angis served on the Affirmative Action Task Force, as the Women’s Concerns Committee chair, as the vice president for committee affairs, and as a member of the 75th Anniversary and 100th Anniversary Conference Program Teams.
Hammond described Angis as a “quiet, persistent, caring, inclusive and impactful leader” who was “using an equity-minded, inclusive framework before it was popular to do so.”
The Butts-Whiting Award recognizes and honors outstanding leaders in ACUI who have made significant contributions to the college union and student activities movement and whose accomplishments and careers are a credit to ACUI. It spotlights the accomplishments of the Association and thereby increases the pride of the staff and students who work with the college union program on each campus. It presents to college communities around the world tangible evidence of the effectiveness of the programs of the college union.
The award presentation and more information about the history of the award and its past winners can be found here.
