Commencement Profile: Adza Beda

Adza Beda has earned a bachelor of arts degree in communication studies, attaining a 3.8 GPA while participating in the Muriel A. Howard Honors and the Ronald E. McNair Scholars programs.

Beda will receive the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence during the 10:00 a.m. baccalaureate ceremony at Buffalo State’s 142nd Commencement, Saturday, May 17, in the Sports Arena.

A gifted and enthusiastic student, Beda is an emerging scholar who is dedicated to improving life in both her local and global communities. She is willing to prepare for and embrace challenging situations with a contagious curiosity that fuels her studies and inspires those around her. Her participation in the college’s French immersion program in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, and exchange program at Manchester Metropolitan University in England is evidence of her desire to be a global citizen.

Beda’s crowning academic achievement at Buffalo State was the ambitious independent fieldwork she conducted in the Toledo District of Belize, the country’s least developed region. With a growing interest in ethnographic field methodology, Beda worked closely with a faculty mentor to devise a plan that resulted in a first-rate study of cacao-production issues.

During her time at Buffalo State, Beda was elected student president of the Muriel A. Howard Honors Program and earned a prestigious Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship and a Federation of Women’s Club Scholarship. She received the Minnie and Joe Engel Student Humanitarian Award; the Volunteer and Service-Learning Center’s Outstanding AmeriCorps Award and Outstanding Undergraduate Student Community Service Award; and the Niagara Frontier District’s Laity Honor for her work at First United Methodist Church. She also participated in numerous college-sponsored service opportunities, including alternative spring break and alternative winter break.

Beda has continually synthesized her scholarly interests with community involvement and volunteerism. Her service has touched many lives, and she has been a model representative of Buffalo State both on campus and abroad.