Every so often, a student comes along whose impact on campus is felt long before you ever hear their name attached to an award. For Jerrod Bolton, a University of Advancing Technology (UAT) Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Advanced Computer Science (ACS) major, that impact has come through late nights in Production Studio, a growing AI Club, and a quiet, consistent habit of showing up for the people around him. This summer, that work earned him UAT's Summer 2026 Brook Cayce Legacy Leadership Award.
When asked what the award means to him, Jerrod didn't reach for a rehearsed answer — he got reflective.
“Receiving this award is a sign of recognition towards all the hard work and dedication I've been putting in,” he said. He admitted he's not always great at giving himself credit or permission to rest: “I find it very hard for myself to give myself a break.” Even on semesters he suspected he hadn't pushed hard enough, he found he'd still been testing his own limits without realizing it.
It's a lesson he traces back to his grandmother. “My granny's always told me, like, you never know who's watching your actual work that you're putting out,” he said — a mantra that's clearly shaped how he shows up, even when no one's grading it.
Jerrod's path to UAT wasn't a straight line, and that's part of what makes his leadership feel earned rather than assigned. Before enrolling, he worked as a recruiting coordinator, doing marketing work and learning early how to shape a message for an audience — skills that still show up in how he leads today. He also spent time teaching in prison facilities, an experience he credits with reshaping how he thinks about access and opportunity.
“People that don't have [access] find a way to learn things that they don't know,” he said of that time. It's a principle he's carried directly into his role as president of UAT's AI Club: creating chances for people to engage with technology and community, even when the path isn't obvious. As club president, he's pushed the university to think bigger — floating ideas like hosting a hackathon or getting AI-branded club merchandise made, small asks that add up to a bigger presence for the community he's building.
Ask Jerrod who's influenced him at UAT, and the list doesn't stop. Staff members like Miss Janice and Tyler Walling check in on him regularly. His student advisor, Tristen Vaughn, works with him closely — “I know I can be a handful,” he laughed. Faculty across departments know him not just by name but by the projects he's led or shown up for, from math with Professor Heather Peters to game-design professors well outside his own major.
“For the most part, every professor know me by person... because either I've led something or I've participated in something,” he said. It's the kind of campus presence that doesn't happen by accident, and one Jerrod attributes less to any grand strategy and more to a simple habit: “Being present and being here.” Checking in on friends. Sending a text. Showing up.
When asked to name a standout moment from his time at UAT, Jerrod pointed to Production Studio — specifically, the milestone where a project he'd been building finally became a tangible prototype.
“Having an actual prototype to show in my milestone was a very special moment to me,” he said. Leading a team through that process taught him a harder lesson than the technical work itself: how to compromise. “You have these people who have brought ideas and broad talents... but all those things can't be put into the project. So you have to be able to compromise, make some reasonings on why you're doing XYZ.”
Seeing that project go from rough first-week sketches to a finished product by the end of the semester, he said, is the kind of milestone that sticks with him — not because it was easy, but because it was real.
Looking ahead, Jerrod is clear-eyed about what he wants his degree to do for him — and for others. He talks about his hometown of Memphis with real affection, describing how people there still recognize him when he visits. That same sense of rootedness shapes his plans for the future.
“When it comes to my next steps... it's definitely earning that degree, using that degree to further myself, and using that degree to pull up others who are looking to either come behind me or be beside me,” he said. “I'd never think that I'm in front of nobody.”
Whether that means tutoring, helping a peer land their next job, or simply staying connected to the community that shaped him, Jerrod sees his success as inseparable from lifting others along the way.
Jerrod Bolton's story is a reminder that leadership doesn't always look like a title. Sometimes it looks like a text message checking in on a friend, a prototype built through compromise, or a student who refuses to see himself as ahead of anyone else.
Congratulations to Jerrod on being named the Summer 2026 recipient of the Brook Cayce Legacy Leadership Award — a recognition as fitting as it is well-earned.
Ready to write your own UAT story? Explore majors like Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computer Science and see where they can take you.