Cadet Cesar Reyes earns 2016 Newman Civic Fellows Award

2016 Jul 18

With a fresh start and new school year just around the corner, the South Carolina Corps of Cadets is gearing up to play a major role in the community. The Citadel's 2016 Leadership Day is October 19, 2016 and hundreds of cadets and students will spread out across the Lowcountry to volunteer and learn leadership by serving others.

Earning over 19,000 hours in community service in one academic year, the Corps, under the direction of the Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics, surpassed their community service goal for the 2015-16 school year. While supporting over 100 different community partners, events and programs the Corps made a strong and positive impact on the local community.

One cadet earned special recognition for his service learning and civic engagement. Cadet Cesar Reyes of Taylors, South Carolina, distinguished himself as the 2016 Newman Civic Fellows Award recipient. The Newman Civic Fellowship is a national award that honors inspiring college student leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities thoughout the country.

"We are extremely proud of Cadet Cesar Reyes, who will be a junior this year. He captured our attention during his freshman year when he stepped in to serve as an impromptu Spanish translator for students from the Charleston County School District during an activity with Citadel Cadets, thereby ensuring a successful event," said Col. Tom Clark, director of the Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics. "Last year, Cesar was a key member in Victor Company where he served on the Company Community Engagement Council (CCEC)."

Reyes, a business administration and modern languages major, is passionate about HALOS, a non-profit that supports families in "kinship care" or foster care by relatives. Under his position on the CCEC, Reyes mobilized his company to learn more about foster care from community experts, executed supply drives and invited HALOS families to campus events.

"Cadet Reyes is instrumental in coordinating productive and rewarding community initiatives for his fellow cadets," said Clark. "He embodies the spirit of service leadership that the Newman Civic Fellow award was designed to recognize and celebrate."

The Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics oversees, coordinates and enhances The Citadel's campus-wide leadership development and ethical growth curriculum. The Krause Center operates in partnership with other campus departments to advance The Citadel's mission to educate principled leaders. The center has implemented the campus-wide Leader Development Program, which integrates initiatives across the Four Pillars that collectively define The Citadel experience: academic instruction, military training, physical effectiveness, and ethical development.