October 24, 2011

Davidson College staged its Fall Convocation presentations as part of the Inauguration ceremony for President Carol Quillen on October 18.

Clark G. Ross, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, presented awards to two faculty members - Annie Ingram and Ann Marie Costa. Tom Shandley, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students, presented awards to three students - Ellie Hoober '14, Vanessa William '13 and Malcolm Moses-Hampton ‘12. Also, John B. Teague, President of the Alumni Association, presented that organization's annual award to sophomores who achieved the highest grade point average during the first year at Davidson. Four students tied for that honor  -- Sam T. Castle '14, Jamie A. Durling '14, Sarah H. Gustafson '14 and Justin C. Strickland '14.

The citations that supported award presentations are below.

2011 Thomas Jefferson Award to Annie Ingram, Melissa and Todd Thomson Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of English.

Prof. Annie Ingram

Each year Davidson College recognizes a faculty member who by personal influence, teaching, writing, and scholarship promotes the high ideals of Thomas Jefferson. The overriding outstanding quality is described as that of having given of self, "generously and well beyond the call of duty."
  
Our recipient is a superb teacher whose influence on students is legendary and whose range of course offerings is impressive. Fulfilling an obvious need in our Ethnic Studies concentration, she added Native-American literature to her usual repertoire of nineteenth-century U.S. literature and environmental literature. Behind her are professional trips to Saudi Arabia and Costa Rica, where she shared her expertise on environmental issues and literature. Ahead of her is directing, in the fall of 2012, our Davidson-in-India program.

Edwin Morris Betts, in his 1944 edition of Thomas Jefferson's Garden Book writes: Jefferson "was possessed of a love of nature so intense that his observant eye caught almost every passing change in it."  With a quiet change of pronoun, you have an equally apt description of our recipient. A fine scholar, she has recently written Coming into Contact: Explorations in Ecocritical Theory and Practice. She is currently working on a new book that will be entitled Flora's Interpreters: Nineteenth-Century American Women and the Culture of Flowers. She has recently served for three years as the President of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment.
 
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." So wrote Henry David Thoreau in Walden. Today's recipient indeed has acted on that good advice. As Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, she was a model mentor, strengthening the work, the intellect, and the character of those students whose "castles" could otherwise have been rather transitory and fragile.
 
The most visible foundation of her work, work that is becoming an academic showpiece for Davidson College is our Environmental Studies Program. The unique combination of disciplines, the truly multidiscipline character of the major, the concern for both the most local of issues as well as those half-a-world away, reflect all that we hope to do more broadly in this college's future. And, yes, this work was not done alone. Rather, a very effective leader harnessed the talents, efforts, and good will of interested faculty.
 
Through the generosity of Melisa and Todd Thomson we have an endowed professorship devoted to environmental studies. In the spring of 2010 we introduced the inaugural Davidson holder of this chair. Without the slightest hesitation, President Ross and I asked our recipient to honor us as the Thomson Professor of Environmental Studies.
 
And, so on this glorious day when we reaffirm this institution's mission of a quality liberal arts education and, concurrently, pledge to enhance all that we now offer our students today and tomorrow, let us extend our gratitude to one who has already vigilantly nudged, cajoled, and, on occasion, even pushed and pulled us along this path to continued excellence.

We thank her for these past contributions and look forward to her continuing influence for many years. Please join me in congratulating our 2011 Thomas Jefferson Award recipient, the Melissa and Todd Thomson Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of English, Dr. Annie Merrill Ingram.
 
2011 Boswell Family Faculty Fellowship to Ann Marie Costa, Professor of Theatre

Prof. Anne Marie Costa

Our faculty place teaching as their highest priority. As a result, opportunities for professional development and scholarship, both vital to successful and invigorated teaching, cannot be fully pursued while the faculty are teaching. They rely on our sabbatical program, with most faculty members only able to support financially a one-semester leave.

We now have a means to permit particularly worthy faculty members to have a full year to pursue an academic objective, a scholar's dream. We are grateful to Tom and Cheryl Boswell, along with their three sons who are all Davidson graduates, for having endowed the Boswell Fellowship Program.
 
One might think that this faculty member would seek a somewhat relaxed sabbatical. For in recent years, she has chaired a department that has major and complicated tasks, she has designed a renovated building and overseen its construction, she has served as president of her national professional organization, directed off-campus plays, and has been a member of the Professional Affairs Committee, the most recent Presidential search committee, and now the Admission Committee. But, for all of us who know and admire her, her boundless energy and admirable talent will be in full evidence next year, during her sabbatical.
 
With this Boswell award, she will be able to participate in cutting edge work in theatre, both in New York City and in London. She will be involved in "Devising Theatre," in which theatre collaborators begin without written text to create a work for performance. The result will be, not only a new theatre course related to this innovative technique, but an original Devised Theatre piece based on Virginia Wolf's story An Unwritten Novel. Let us all plan to be there opening night. 
 
For now, however, join me in recognizing and congratulating, Professor Ann Marie Costa, Professor of Theatre and this year's Boswell Family Faculty Fellowship winner.

2011 Goodwin-Exxon Awards to Ellie Hoober '14, Vanessa Williams '13 and Malcolm Moses Hampton '12

(l-r) Malcom Moses-Hampton '12, Ellie Hoober '14, Vanessa Williams '13

It is my honor to present our 2011 Goodwin-Exxon Award recipients. Established by Henry S. Goodwin '30 and funded in part by the Exxon Foundation, these awards go annually to a sophomore, junior and senior adjudged to exemplify the highest standards of character, good sportsmanship, friendliness and consideration for others.

The sophomore recipient is from Minnetonka, Minn. A Bonner Scholar, she entered Davidson interested in the anti-trafficking movement and she has continued to stay involved. She has deepened that commitment by reinvigorating a chapter of the International Justice Mission on campus spreading awareness about human trafficking and raised funds to support people on their paths to freedom. 

One thing that sets Ellie apart from others who may be interested in this cause is that she has researched the issues thoroughly and makes choices in her life accordingly.  She makes conscious and intentional choices about what she eats, what she wears and other products she buys to only support "slave free" businesses. 

For your empathetic, curious, kind and tireless advocacy for those less fortunate, we honor you today as the 2011 Goodwin Exxon Sophomore Award recipient, Ellen "Ellie" Whitney Hoober ‘14.

The junior recipient of the 2011 Goodwin Exxon Award goes to a young woman from Jacksonville, Fla.

Our recipient is a junior Bonner Scholar who tackles each and every opportunity to make a difference with her positive energy and deep concern for others. She maintains an upbeat attitude at all times that motivates and inspires others. 

She has found a passion in education, and has been a Freedom Schools Intern for the past two summers and was selected to be the head trainer in the coming year. She has worked with children in the LEARNWorks Program at the Ada Jenkins Center as well as the Davidson chapter of the Boys and Girls Club. 

She is compassionate, funny and both optimistic and realistic. 

For your humble nature, contagious spirit, and selfless service to many causes on this campus and beyond, we honor you today as the 2011 Goodwin Exxon Junior Award recipient. Vanessa Ann Williams ‘13.

Our senior recipient is a Terry Scholar majoring in psychology from Windsor Mill, Md.

He manages many responsibilities at Davidson, from four-year varsity football player to President of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity to assisting Patterson Court Council Judicial work.

In the words of his coach, "He is one of the most enjoyable young men that I have had the pleasure of coaching in 20 years-he even eats ice cream with a 110% effort."

He also tutors middle school youth at the Ada Jenkins Center, many of whom have disabilities. He plans to continue his studies in neuroscience and hopes to cure Alzheimer's someday. He has spent the past two summers on campus doing research in this vital area.

For your contagious smile, infectious enthusiasm, service to others and commitment to do the best you can in everything you do, we honor you today as the senior recipient of the Goodwin-Exxon Award, Malcolm Kem Malik Moses-Hampton ‘12.

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,900 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.
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