Awards for Excellent Undergraduate and Graduate Students
Awards for Excellent Undergraduate and Graduate Students
The awards and honors listed below were announced at the dean's convocation and bestowed upon the students by the department at this year's senior luncheon. There are three equally important categories of awards the department honors students by: Citizenship and Engagement awards, Academic Excellence in the Undergraduate program awards, and Academic Excellence in the Honors program awards. In addition, the department also honors one of its graduate student teaching assistants with a Teaching Excellence award. For more about the awards and the significance of their namesakes, check out our website here.
Here are the OSCARS (aka Undergraduate Awards)- NU PHILOSOPHY OF THE YEAR 2024:
Citizenship and Engagement Awards:
The RUTH BARCAN MARCUS Award acknowledges engagement in fostering equity among students in the formal sciences by teaching and mentoring students who are traditionally underrepresented and underserved in formal science instruction for tutoring in formal logic goes to Elsa French Steen Koppell and Elena Isabelle Fabian.
The LULA A. PETERSON Prize for exemplary citizenship for the philosophy major honors students who have gone far beyond the call of duty in their functions and organizing activities to truly create atmospheric and social changes in our department. This year's award goes to Clary Doyle and Andrew Chin.
By it, the department recognizes
- the exemplary, exceptionally effective leadership and continuous energetic engagement as recruiters and presidents of NUPS,
- as organizers of the first undergraduate-organized national conference at the department ina decade with an internationally famous keynote speaker, as well as
- as organizers and constant inspiration for the NU-Philosophy Bussey Society, and for their engagement as mediators of cooperations between the philosophy department’s undergraduate organizations.
Their activities and engagement for the department’s undergraduate initiatives were crucial for giving a noticeable boost to this essential part of the departmental experience.
For this year's Senior Marshal for the Philosophy department at the Graduation ceremonies we designated Christopher Yee for his continued engagement in the community and innovative and energetic initiatives around the PHIL undergraduate community.
Academic Awards in the undergraduate program:
The CHARLES W. MILLS prize for the best short paper (up to 5 pages) of the year written by a student in a philosophy class goes to Jacob Singer (1st Year) for their paper “Time, Then and Now” (instructor Sean Ebels Duggan, written for PHIL 101-8).
The STEPHEN WHITE prize for the best paper written by a student in their first or second year goes to Kameron Rabizadeh (1st Year) for their paper “Democracy and the First Amendment Freedoms” (instructor Axel Mueller in PHIL 101-7 “What Is Democracy?”).
The BRENTANO prize for the best paper written by a student in their third or fourth year goes to Jackson Baker (4th Year) for their paper “There is Nothing New Under the Sun: Discussing Adam Smith’s Account of the Nature and Value of Imitative Art” (instructor Rachel Zuckert in PHIL 380 ‘Philosophy of Art').
This year's STEPHEN TOULMIN PRIZE honoring superior overall achievement throughout all courses in their UG-career as major and amount of engagement in philosophy-courses (measured by the GPA in philosophy, number and type of credits and other accomplishments for a graduating philosophy major) is awarded to Sam Keimweiss.
Academic Awards in the Honors Program
The HONKOM recommended and the College’s Committee on Undergraduate Academic Excellence conferred HONORS IN PHILOSOPHY to
- Silas Staten-Lusty for their excellent work in the honors program, excellent accomplishments as a philosophy major, and their accomplished work in the thesis "Constitution and Delirium: how Lynne Baker’s Philosophy Helps Acknowledge Patient’s First-Person Perspectives" (supervisor Peter Van Elswyk).
- Camila Vicens for their excellent work in the honors program, very good accomplishments as a philosophy major, and their accomplished work in the interdisciplinary thesis "A Philosophical Critique of the U.S. Malpractice System" (supervisor Chad Horne).
The HONKOM recommended and the College’s Committee on Undergraduate Academic Excellence conferred HONORS WITH DISTINCTION IN PHILOSOPHY to
- Sam Keimweiss for their excellent work in the honors program, excellent accomplishments as a philosophy major, and their highly accomplished philosophical work in the thesis “Pain without Gain: Intolerable Suffering and Physician-Assisted Death” (supervisor Chad Horne).
- Christopher Yee for their excellent work in the honors program, excellent accomplishments as a philosophy major, and their very highly accomplished work in the thesis "Can We Really Wrong Others With Our Beliefs?" (supervisor Sandy Goldberg).
The HONKOM awards the DAVID HULL PRIZE for the best senior thesis of the academic year to Christopher Yee for their thesis “Can We Really Wrong Others With Our Beliefs?” (supervisor Sandy Goldberg).
Finally, the departmental Thomas A. McCarthy Award for Excellence in Teaching by a philosophy graduate teaching assistant was awarded to Samuel Filby for recognition by both the department and his students.