UNIVERSITY PARK — Noa Diggs, a senior majoring in criminology and double minoring in social justice in education and women’s studies at University Park, is the recipient of the 2026 Jackson Lethbridge Tolerance Award.
The award recognizes a junior, senior or graduate student for outstanding efforts to enhance the understanding of diverse cultures and create a community where all individuals are accepted and valued equally. The award is named for its benefactor, a Penn State alumnus.
Diggs has worked as an intern on the engagement team at the Center for the Performing Arts, where she is described as a leader in the community.
“Noa serves as a leader in the Penn State community and works hard to accurately represent the needs and wants of her peers through her programming and curation work,” a nominator said.
Most recently, Diggs started a wellness series aimed towards serving Black women on campus called “Soft Space,” which she built the foundations of as a Community and Belonging Educator at the Center for Social Change and Belonging on campus, in May 2025.
“Given that Black women make up roughly 2% of the undergraduate population at University Park, I recognized a gap, one that I felt called to help fill,” Diggs said.
Diggs is a founding member and currently serves as the external president of the Spotlight Collective, a professional development community focused on arts administration and student advocacy. The organization is dedicated to advancing student-centered arts programming and performances at Eisenhower Auditorium. Recently, the group highlighted both emerging and established artists such as Leon Thomas and Marcelo Hernandez, which were the highest attended student-curated shows of their respective seasons.
Diggs said these efforts are a result of cross-campus partnerships to develop initiatives that center student voices, address barriers to belonging and support students in navigating complex institutional spaces.
She’s also an advocate for initiatives such as “The Butterfly Wall,” a project that honors survivors of sexual violence and leading back-to-school drives to support students in need, which was created as part of a criminal justice course she took on sexual violence.
Diggs said she plans to continue working within a university setting, and is particularly interested in student-facing roles that center diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and belonging, while also incorporating the arts.
“I see my work as part of a larger commitment to reimagining institutions, especially universities, as places where students don’t have to shrink themselves to succeed,” Diggs said. “I want to continue building spaces that center care, creativity, and justice in ways that are both meaningful and lasting.”