American University today announced the recipients of its highest undergraduate honors for 2026. 

Ethan McBride, SPA/BS ’26, (pictured above right) is the recipient of the President’s Award, while Taha Vahanvaty, SPA/BA ’26, has been named the inaugural recipient of the President’s Award for Civic Engagement, a new accolade recognizing significant contributions dialogue across differences and the search for common ground.

Meet the awardees here.

Engineering an Accessible Campus

While Ethan McBride, SPA/BS ’26, found his voice at American University, it was his mother who first taught him what it takes to enact change.

Before her death when Ethan was just five years old, Ilene McBride was a dedicated force within the Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation—a nonprofit raising awareness for the condition her son lives with, often referred to as brittle bone disease.

“She was as vocal an advocate for my disability as anyone I’ve ever met,” said McBride. “Everything that I do, I do for her. I would hope everything that I do is a reflection of the person that she hoped that I would become—that I can make the world a better place because she always hoped it would be better for me.”

Throughout his time at AU, McBride—a data sciences for political science major with a near-perfect 3.96 GPA—has honored that legacy by championing physical accessibility on campus.

His efforts began during his first semester when he attended an event at Bender Arena. McBride, who uses a wheelchair, found that the eye-level railing in the Americans with Disabilities Act seating area completely obstructed his view.

Rather than simply accepting the barrier, he reached out to Amanda Taylor, then AU’s assistant vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion, with a proposal: “I’d love to sit down and chat with you about ideas that I have about how to make this different,” he wrote in an email.

That initial conversation sparked a lasting impact. After resolving the issues in Bender, McBride joined the Campus Wayfinding Project, where his lived experience helped guide the installation of clearer signage for wheelchair ramps, elevators, and campus maps.

For McBride, the work is defined by a solution-oriented mindset. “It’s one thing to complain, but it’s another to make a stance about how things can change. My energy and my passion for this work is not [about] making complaints,” he said. It’s about “making efforts and [finding] strategies for how things can be better.”

His leadership extended into the 2024–25 academic year, when McBride served as one of eight inaugural Inclusive Excellence fellows. In this role, he collaborated with the administration to improve the campus climate through belonging and bridge-building initiatives.

As he prepares for a career in public service shaping disability policy, McBride said the President’s Award is more than a personal milestone; he sees it as a validation of AU’s continued commitment to inclusion.

“When I got here, the programming centered around disability access and inclusion was [nowhere] near the caliber it is today,” he said. “[This award] represents a monumental step in the right direction for how AU is [prioritizing] physical accessibility.”

The Architecture of Dialogue

For Taha Vahanvaty, SPA/BA ’26, peacebuilding is rooted in a philosophy of love and understanding.

“My religious belief and my personal belief is [that] I am compelled to love thy neighbor,” he said. “To love thy neighbor, I need to understand thy neighbor. To understand thy neighbor, I need to talk to thy neighbor. That’s the foundation of all this work.”

As the inaugural winner of the President’s Award for Civic Engagement, the communication, legal institutions, economics, and government (CLEG) major embodies the spirit of the new accolade. Moving forward, the award will annually honor one AU student for significant contributions to engaging in dialogue across differences, practicing productive disagreement, and searching for common ground.

Vahanvaty’s bridge-building work began long before his arrival at AU. In 2016, as a 15-year-old high schooler in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, he founded The Acceptance Project, a student-run organization of 500 members dedicated to fostering dialogue.

To establish the group, he raised $15,000 to launch a statewide summer training camp designed to empower high school students to lead civil discourse. His curriculum design team included Lara Schwartz, director of the Project on Civic Dialogue. “The AU seed was planted then,” Vahanvaty said.

Following a gap year spent performing interfaith work in Mumbai, India, Vahanvaty arrived on campus and immediately began uniting people of different beliefs. Starting in January 2023, he launched and managed a $10,000 grant program to support strategic dialogue initiatives across campus.

During his first year, he and Melia Klingler, SIS/BA ’26, also cofounded AU’s Interfaith Club. What began as six students meeting on the quad outside of the Kay Spiritual Life Center has evolved into a vibrant community of 25 weekly attendees.  

In the wake of the tragic events of October 7, Vahanvaty organized an interfaith grieving service for Jewish and Muslim students.

Simultaneously, he remained committed to intrafaith work within the Muslim community. As a Bohra Shia Muslim—“a minority within a minority”—he institutionalized a commitment to authentic dialogue within the Muslim Student Association (MSA) by creating the position of intra-faith coordinator, a role he currently holds.

Under his leadership as co-president last year, MSA raised more than $15,000 for Ramadan Iftars, serving daily meals to more than 80 people. He also successfully partnered with AU Kitchen to expand halal options and introduce Suhoor service during Ramadan.

“None of this work would have been accomplished without love,” Vahanvaty said. “Undergirding all this work was a profound love and that’s what feels the most impactful.”