Raymond Musiima is an international student from Uganda preparing to earn his MBA from the Broad College of Business in the spring of 2025. He is a 2025 recipient of the Homer Higbee International Education Award. The following content is repurposed with permission from Musiima’s acceptance speech during the International Awards Ceremony on April 17, 2025, in the Kellogg Center.
There could never have been a better time for an international student from Africa at an American university to receive the Homer Higbee International Education award.
Thank you, Michigan State University, for continuing to tell a good story about America to the world, even as the idea of America is changing every day. With this award, you invite the memory that people like me matter—that we are people, and that our work is worthy of recognition, too.
This means more to me than an award; it’s the greatest honor of my life!
Thank you to everyone at the Alliance for African Partnership. Thank you to the Howard family—Linda and Ron Howard. You’ve treated me as your own son, tending patiently to hear about my highs, lows and dreams since my first U.S. visit in 2019.
Thank you, Dr. Damaris Choti. I’ve never hesitated to turn to you in my despair and anxiety. You lift me up and trust that I will never fall. My fellow students, Christine Corsi, Vasily Ivanov, and Ibra Luberega, my time here would never have been the same without you. I can't picture what it would be like. And to you Christine, if emotions could be verbalized fluently, every international student in America needs a “Christine” who recognizes the value of their uniqueness especially when everything seems to fall apart.
Laura Rugless, Kelly Schweda, Krista McCallum, I owe you a debt of love and support I can never fully pay back, so I will pay it forward. Michigan Fellows Africa Initiative (MFAI), it's an honor to lead such a dedicated team; our shared success has made this possible. My mom, and all my siblings in Uganda, I can never trade your prayers and love for anything in this world. This award is yours, too!
Thank you, Amy Jamison and Jose Malete. And to you both I say, “If ever sadness weighs you down and doubt clouds your passion, wondering is this truly worth it?” May this moment be one of the reminders to prove that your labor and service at MSU is never in vain.
To Derek Tobias, there is no Homer Higbee International Education Award without you! Thank you for seeing something in me and nominating me!
I'll leave you with a quote from the movie Troy, a screenplay inspired by Homer's “Iliad.”
"Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so, we ask ourselves: Will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"
To every girl, boy, woman, mother, father and child doing your best every day to become better with little, keep going, boundaries do break.
Go Green!