During the end-of-year faculty/staff breakfast, which took place on Connor Quad on June 10, 2021, Head of School Rich Schellhas 1760 announced the winners of a new award, the Distinguished Mission Award, which went to GA's five extraordinary nurses:

• Lori Andress '88
   
• Pam Barrer P'02 '08
   
• Lorraine Rodgers P'03 '08
   
• Karen Williams P'14, '16, '17 
   
• Sarah Williams '14

"Extraordinary years call for extraordinary measures," said Schellhas. "For the first and hopefully last time at GA, it is my privilege this year to present five Distinguished Mission Awards – the perfect combination of our two most esteemed awards in recognition of the superhuman achievement of keeping the 1,500 people on our campus healthy every day and for exemplifying our mission as compassionate and collaborative community leaders in the vaccination of literally thousands of people, many of whom had no connection to GA at all. For being on call day and night, for answering questions and assuaging fears, for caring for the sick, for constant contact tracing, for performing last minute drive-thru swabs while planning the war-like logistics necessary to vaccinate 2,000 people in a day, for lollipops, for kindness, for uniformly heroic efforts. Congratulations on your distinguished Mission Award!"