The many students, faculty and staff who’ve seen Malik Stewart and Sydney Robinson in action around the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University campuses already know the two make an impactful and effective team.
Now their peers around the nation are taking notice as well.
Stewart, the assistant dean of Multicultural Services at CSB and SJU, and Robinson ’19, the associate director, were each honored at the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) IV-E Regional Conference, which was held in Milwaukee Oct. 19-21.
Stewart was one of three recipients of the Outstanding Mid-Level Student Affairs Professional Award, while Robinson was one of three individuals to receive the Graduate Rising Star Award.
“It feels good, for sure,” Stewart said. “Especially for us both to win. I think that says a lot about the work we’re doing here.
“I’m especially proud to see Sydney honored for the work she’s doing,” he continued. “Not just as her supervisor, but because she’s a Saint Ben’s alumna. She’s a Bennie who’s back here doing this work. For our current students, she’s a role model they can look up to.”
This marks the second-straight year Robinson has been honored at the conference. She earned the Minnesota Outstanding New Professional Award in 2024.
But she too said being honored alongside Stewart made this year especially meaningful.
“I think it speaks to the working relationship we’ve established,” Robinson said. “I won specifically for being a graduate student, which means my supervisor has allowed me to have the space needed to excel here.
“I’m very much empowered to execute and perform.”
Stewart has been at CSB and SJU since 2014 and has held his current post since February 2021. That’s the same year Robinson returned to CSB as the diversity and inclusion program manager. She became assistant director of Multicultural Student Services in 2023, a title that changed to associate director earlier this year.
During all her time here, she and Stewart have established a working rapport that’s helped fuel the growth of their office, a growth highlighted by the opening of the Multicultural Center on the CSB campus in the fall of 2021.
“The building where we’re sitting were racquetball courts when I was a student, and I think Malik being able to come in and push things like this forward has made a huge impact,” Robinson said. “He’s able to hone down when it comes to what we want to do and what can actually get done. He’s able to actualize things and figure out what’s realistic, what we can accomplish in a reasonable amount of time.
“Some people think ‘What can we do that will help the next class four years from now?’ But he’s thinking about the students here in this moment, how can we impact their day-to-day life? This space is a great example of that,” she continued. “It gives our students the chance to hang out and be free. To be who they are. And Malik helped get that done.”
Stewart is especially proud of the scope of the work Multicultural Student Services is engaged in.
“We interact with almost every facet of these two campuses,” he continued. “Sydney has just been working with (CSB Institutional Advancement) on their Give Day. We’re doing info sessions with faculty. We collaborate on Black History Month and all these other events. We work with Latin American Studies on their speaker series. We’re working with the McCarthy Center on bringing the Minnesota Story Collective to campus. We’ve just launched a new immigration law partnership where our students can get a first consult free through a local resource.
“So there’s all these groups here, and outside groups too, that we get the chance to work with. And it’s nice to see that work recognized.”
Robinson said the awards are also indicative of the progress the office has made in recent years.
“Justice work is not limited to our space,” she said. “It happens across these campuses now – in our halls and our workshops and our classrooms – because we’ve been able to build these relationships with our community here.”