The Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts will celebrate student, faculty, staff and alumni achievement at its annual Honors Day celebration on Saturday, April 27. The dinner is by invitation only.

The awards to be presented include the Hixson-Lied Faculty and Staff Awards, the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence, the Student Leadership Award, Outstanding GTA Award, F. Pace Woods Scholarships, Vreeland Awards and Porter Awards, among others.

For a full list of Honors Day awards recipients, visit https://go.unl.edu/63m3.

The recipients of the Alumni Board’s Award of Merit, Alumni Achievement Awards and Student Leadership Award will also be honored. They include:

Karen Kunc (B.F.A. 1975), Alumni Achievement Award in Art, Art History & Design. Kunc has taught at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln since 1983. In 2003, she was named Willa Cather Professor of Art with an emphasis in printmaking. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Nebraska in 1975 and her Master of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University in 1977. Highly respected nationally and internationally among her peers, she has had more than 110 solo exhibitions, received more than 90 awards, 60 grants and commissions, eight residency awards and has participated in 850 group exhibitions. Her work is featured in more than 26 publications.

Donald C. Gorder (B.M. 1973), Alumni Achievement Award in Music. Gorder is chair and founder of the Music Business/Management Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and is an attorney, educator and musician. He holds advanced degrees in law and music (B.M. University of Nebraska–Lincoln, M.M. University of Miami, J.D. University of Denver), has authored numerous articles on the music industry, and has spoken at many national and international music industry events and academic conferences.

Scott Raymond (B.F.A. 2003), Alumni Achievement Award in Theatre and Film. Fifteen years ago, Raymond was a member of the first graduating class of the new film and new media program in the Carson School. He received a second Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre design and technical production. He received a Master of Fine Arts cum laude in animation and visual effects from the Academy of Art University. He then worked at elementFX and ultimately worked as a crowd artist at PDI/DreamWorks, one of the most prestigious animation studios in the world. He spent nearly eight years at DreamWorks on such well-known projects as “Trolls,” “Kung Fu Panda 3,” “The Penguins of Madagascar,” “Madagascar 3” and “Shrek Forever After.” In 2015, he began teaching at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.

This year’s Award of Merit, which honors those who have made contributions to the College, but who are not necessarily alumni, will be presented to Mike Hill. Hill is a retired film editor who won an Academy Award for the film “Apollo 13” in 1995. Hill and his editing partner Dan Hanley had a longstanding, notable collaboration with Director Ron Howard, having edited all of Howard’s films since “Night Shift” in 1982. Hill has volunteered his time to the Carson School, serving as a professional mentor to the student editing team for the Carson Films “Vipers in the Grass” and “Digs.” He has also frequently been a guest speaker in the post-production classes.

The Student Leadership Award will be presented to Michaela Wadzinski, a senior film and new media major in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film.