When Nikola Milosevic, the Distinguished Graduate Award winner for the undergraduate class of 2025, first arrived in Oregon, his mind was on one thing: basketball. “I was a classic teenager who was toxically in love with his dream,” he says. That dream brought him across the Atlantic from his home in Montenegro to the University of Portland, a Division I basketball school. He didn’t know much about Oregon, or the culture he’d encounter, but basketball was the driving force behind every decision.

That dream didn’t last long. A broken leg and a disappointing season ended with the school’s coaching staff encouraging him to transfer. He was back home in Montenegro by July—unsigned, panicking, without a plan. “I was desperate,” he says. “Most people are signed by the early summer.” Through a last-minute connection, he was introduced to Corban University head coach Taylor Kelly. “TK watched my highlight tape and offered me almost immediately. So, I came to Corban—basically out of necessity.”

He had no idea what was waiting for him. The transition was jarring. Coming from a large urban campus and a more secular environment, Corban’s small Christian community felt almost alien. “I was shocked beyond belief,” he remembers. “I’m from Montenegro, and our culture is very different. People don’t often smile and wave at strangers. So, when I got here and everyone was smiling at me, I was suspicious.”

Back home, he had friends to lean on—friends who understood his culture and spoke his native language. At Corban, he was alone. But over time, that loneliness became the catalyst for something deeper. “I was forced to open myself up to the possibility that there’s maybe a lot I can learn from the people here,” he says.

One of those people was Corban alum, Richard Truman. One afternoon in the dining hall, Truman sat down with him unexpectedly. “He told me he had just found out he might have cancer again,” Milosevic recalls. “I was shocked. Why was he sitting with me—a student he barely knew—instead of being with his wife or family?”

Then came the question that changed his life: “Do you know what the gospel is?”

Nikola tried to say yes. Montenegro was largely a Christian nation, but the Christianity he knew was so different from what he was encountering at Corban. “I thought I knew the gospel, but I found myself wanting to say ‘no’ with all of my being, and wanting to hear what he had to say,” Milosevic says. “It was so contrary to everything I thought made logical sense.” A staunch atheist in his past, he wrestled with his instinct to dismiss what he was feeling—until he couldn’t find any more reasons. “There was this voice in my head that

said, ‘If you miss this opportunity, you’re missing the most important thing you’ll ever encounter.’” Nikola asked to hear the gospel, and he chose to accept it. In that moment, something unexplainable happened. “It felt like an explosion. I still don’t have the words for it.”

Though now filled with the Holy Spirit, his journey didn’t get easier overnight. As an international student, far from family and cultural familiarity, he faced new struggles. “People forget how much your environment and upbringing shape your values,” he said. “When you move, you think you’re still standing on that same foundation—but you’re not. I had to learn to reshape my thoughts on morality to conform with what I was learning and experiencing following Christ.”

Corban became fertile ground for healing, growth, and calling. Nikola immersed himself in Corban’s environment, academically, socially, and spiritually, and he began to flourish. Early in his first semester, he expressed concern that he didn’t have an appropriate Bible, so his professors ordered him one. Soon, he was reading it faithfully and meeting with faculty, especially Dr. Tim Anderson, to discuss what he was learning.

“At another school, you go to class, take your exams, and leave,” he says. “At Corban, the faculty and community encourage you to grow into someone you didn’t know you could be.”

Audacious in his goals from day one, his advisors recall his plan during his first advising meeting, where he proposed a triple major, and a few minors on the side for good measure. Wisely, he was encouraged to refine his plan, but Nikola has consistently taken courses across nearly every academic spectrum and is a regular in faculty offices, often asking for further reading and borrowing books—which he always returns.

As president of the Hoff School of Business Student Association, Nikola fostered connection and a sense of belonging among his peers. During summers in Montenegro, he has passionately pursued several business start-ups, aided by his Corban business profs, laying the groundwork for meaningful impact when he eventually returns.

He credits mentors like Dr. Ryan Stark, Dr. Bryce Bernard, and the entire Hoff School of Business team for their encouragement. In February, the School even provided partial funding for him to attend a leadership conference in London—another dream realized. When asked why he wanted to attend, he said, “I want to be involved in the improvement of educational, political, and social systems that are vital to the future development of my country.”

Now graduating as a psychology and business double major, he hopes to return to Montenegro as a therapist and begin to create a bridge between faith and mental health

that he believes his culture so desperately needs. “There’s a deep need back home for people who can integrate clinical psychology with a genuine relationship with Christ,” he says. “I want to share what I’ve discovered here—how faith is more than ritual, more than formality. It’s a relationship that changes you. That’s something I want to take back.”

What is on the immediate horizon for the distinguished undergraduate of the class of 2025? “I heard this quote the other day,” Nikola says. “I believe it comes from the creator of a kids’ show called Veggie Tales, which I had never encountered. But it goes something like this: ‘Where I end up in five years is none of my business.’ I think that’s so profound. I’m just trying my best to follow God and be faithful with today.”