Arts & Letters Student Named 2018 Kaufman Award Winner

Kleopatra Moditsi

By Elizabeth Proffitt

Kleopatra Moditsi, double major in Political Science and International Studies, was selected from a group of top Old Dominion University students as the 2018 Kaufman Award winner. The honor includes a $10,000 prize, and it is awarded to ODU seniors "who have exerted an exceptional and constructive influence on the university, its students or the community by demonstrating the highest qualities of leadership and service."

Moditsi earned consideration for this distinctive student award because of her outstanding academic achievements. Moditsi is a 4.0 GPA student and a member of the Honors College. The Kaufman Award is not her first accomplishment at ODU. She also received the Phi Kappa Phi Outstanding Junior Award (2016-17) as well as the Award for Academic Excellence: First Year Scholar (2014-15).

Moditsi's involvement in the campus community has not been entirely academic; she also served as President of the Global Monarch Club and as Secretary General of the Model United Nations Society.

Her outreach is also on a global scale, as she served as a team leader for a volunteer trip to a refugee camp in Greece for the Alternative Spring Breaks Program in 2017.

Moditsi will be attending American University's School of International Service for a Master of Arts in International Peace and Conflict Resolution. Moditsi identified, Dr. Aaron Karp, Lecturer and Director of the Model UN, as the most inspiring faculty member she had at ODU. Dr. Karp is very interested to see where Moditsi's academic journey takes her. "She's not the kind of person who'll go down the path of least resistance, necessarily. She may surprise a few people with where she ends up," Karp said.