By Robert McKinney, Assistant Athletics Director, Communications

SALEM, Ore. -- Swimmer Niki Kates (Sr., Truckee, CA/Forest Charter School) was nominated by Willamette University for the 2020 NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Willamette also nominated track and field competitor Hope Duenas (Sr., Covina, CA/Covina HS) for the award (see separate story). Willamette was the only member of the Northwest Conference with two nominees. George Fox University women's lacrosse player Jennifer Burke was named NWC Woman of the Year.

The NCAA Woman of the Year Award honors graduating college student-athletes who have completed their eligibility and have distinguished themselves in academics, athletics, service, and leadership. This year, a record total of 605 student-athletes were nominated for the award. There were 259 nominees from NCAA Division I, 126 nominees from NCAA Division II and 220 nominees from NCAA Division III. Willamette competes in Division III.

Each nominee submitted a statement about her life as a student-athlete. Portions of the statement from Kates are included in this article as quotes.

Kates was successful as a Willamette swimmer. She also was active outside of the pool with her team and as a Refugee and Migration Studies and Psychology double major. Her commitment and excellence were motivated in many ways by the impact her great aunt Alice had on her.

"I was biking home from swim practice as a junior when I got the call: my great aunt Alice was gone," Kates said. "She and I were close despite our radically different life experiences. By the time she was my age, Alice had survived Auschwitz and a 500-mile death march, lost 21 of her family members, and shaken hands with the Swiss president. Needless to say, my life has been much less eventful. Her passing left an emptiness where her spark of humor, resilience, and compassion once was.

"A month before she passed, I started volunteering with our local refugee population through an organization called Salem for Refugees (SFR) to pay forward what aid workers had done for my family," Kates continued. "After losing Alice, connecting with local refugees became my way of honoring her memory, and my latter years of college gradually formed a mosaic of swimming, advocacy, and scholarship."

Along the way, Kates became a Rhodes Scholar finalist and was chosen as the 2019-20 Jean Williams Award winner. The Jean Williams Award is presented annually to the senior women's student-athlete who most excelled in all areas of their career at Willamette by exemplifying and demonstrating outstanding leadership, scholarship, and athleticism.

The athletic and academic journey taken by Kates began slowly and then excelled into a truly outstanding list of activities and accomplishments.

"During my first year at Willamette, few of my teammates' extracurricular involvement extended beyond the pool," Kates recalled. "Understandably so -- it is challenging enough to balance being a student-athlete, let alone a volunteer, employee, or researcher. At the end of my first year, with guidance from an older teammate, I communicated with my coaches to find a way to accommodate swimmers who wanted to be involved in the community outside of athletics while maintaining our program's athletic rigor."

Athletic accomplishments for Kates included setting Willamette's school record in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:09.26 at the 2020 NWC Swimming Championships. She also is ranked fourth, seventh, and eighth in the 200 I.M. at Willamette. She is second all-time in the 200-yard backstroke (2:07.37), and also owns the fifth, sixth, ninth and 10th fastest times. Kates is sixth all-time at WU in the 100-yard backstroke at 59.17, and also holds seventh, eighth and 10th on the list. She swam on the third and fourth fastest 400-yard medley relay teams in school history.

She placed fourth at the 2020 NWC Championships with her school-record time in the 200 I.M. She also was sixth in the 200-yard backstroke and eighth in the 100-yard backstroke, as she earned Second Team All-NWC honors three times. During her career, she received Second Team All-NWC recognition 11 times. She also competed on 11 relay teams in her four years at the NWC meet. She served as a team captain in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

"I became marginally more involved throughout my sophomore career, but it was not until my junior year, when I lost Alice, that I fully embraced my roles as a student, leader, and advocate for my team and community," Kates commented. "I chose to honor her through my advocacy for the local refugee community.

"Between practices and classes, I met with immigration agencies, lawyers, and social workers to help local refugees find stability in the United States," Kates said. "This experience helped me connect to the community beyond campus and build a network centered on equity and human rights."

Many of her academic and community service projects related to the Salem refugee community. She also worked to involve other Willamette swimmers in community service.

"On campus, I worked with faculty to design and implement a new major that I ultimately studied (Refugee and Migration Studies). I wanted an opportunity for myself and future students to focus on a pressingly relevant field. Throughout, I worked as a captain of the swimming team to foster a culture of community involvement beyond the pool. I encouraged my teammates to research, volunteer, and advocate for issues that were important to them."

And Kates also set an example, both academically and in her community service work. Her Senior Thesis research topic was 'Comparing Prison Reentry and Refugee Resettlement.' She qualified for the College Honor Roll five times at Willamette. She graduated with a bachelor's degree this spring. In addition, she received the Shannon P. Hogue Civic Communication and Media Award in 2017 and 2018. The award honored her use of communication in her refugee advocacy work, including research and other forms of civic engagement.

In 2019, she was inducted into the Chi Alpha Sigma national student-athlete honorary society. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Kates was awarded a Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs. As a result, she will be working in San Francisco starting this fall.

Kates has been very active in campus leadership. Among her many activities, she was a Colloquium Associate at Willamette in the fall of 2019. She tutored first-year students in reading, writing, note-taking, and critical thinking skills. She has been the co-president of the Restorative Justice Coalition since May of 2018 and was a founder and president of the Swahili Club in May of 2019. She was a member of the Jewish Student Union during all four years at Willamette.

"I even collaborated with some of my teammates to bring tutoring and mentorship to local refugee high school students through Global Partners for Student Success," Kates said. "I helped implement this program by recruiting and organizing tutors in addition to tutoring biweekly. Our services became critical when COVID-19 forced schools online, leaving out students to reckon with the written format of Google Classroom, which posed a great challenge for those with minimal English literacy.

"Happily, I can report that our most vulnerable students had access to tutoring through the end of the school year, and some have graduated and enrolled in community college," Kates added. "Furthermore, as of this spring, four of my teammates were awarded research grants addressing environmentalism, while others have volunteered with the refugee community, and still more have worked in the volunteer office at Willamette. I see an emerging team culture of leadership in multiple facets of life, and I am so proud of my teammates for offering their diverse talents to the broader community."

Her off-campus community service participation has been exceptional. She was a student resource specialist with the Transformative Justice Initiative (TJI) dealing with prison education and reform. She helped local refugee high school students through Global Partners for Student Success and also was involved with Salem for Refugees as a community outreach member and mentor team member. As part of that work, she helped to develop a Refugee Clothing Drive on campus.

In addition, she helped Special Olympics Oregon as a swimming teacher. She contributed to the Liberal Arts Research Collaborative regarding prison reentry in the summer of 2019. She has taught English as a volunteer starting in February, 2018, and became involved with restorative justice at the Oregon State Penitentiary starting in September, 2018. In the summer of 2018, she worked with the Borgen Project as a political affairs intern, working to increase human rights and access to resources in the developing world.

Kates commented that she felt fulfilled by helping develop bridges between Willamette and the Salem community. She was able to advocate for refugees while empowering others to join her efforts.

"Collaborating with teammates, staff, faculty, and the community allowed me to see humanity's propensity for good," Kates said. "As I go forward into the world, I will take with me the lessons of leadership, compassion, and collaboration."