PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE CELEBRATES ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND ACHIEVEMENT AT HONORS DAY 2024
Presbyterian College celebrated academic achievement and student research during its annual Honors Day Symposium and convocation on April 18.
The spring event offers the campus community an entire day of research presentations, exhibits, and performances across every academic discipline and department, as dozens of students present their honors and capstone research.
Honors Day is also an opportunity each year to recognize the overall academic success and leadership of students and the career achievement of PC’s professors.
Mark Anderson, the Lassiter Professor of Art, was named the PC Professor of the Year, while William Patrick Johnson, a senior from Lexington, was named Outstanding Senior for the Class of 2024. Both will address the Class of ’24 at PC’s commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 11.
Dr. Mike Rischbieter, professor of biology and the 2023 winner of the Dr. Robert H. Freymeyer Award for Meritorious Scholarship, delivered the convocation’s keynote address, “With a Little Brazilian Luck …” In his speech, Rischbieter discussed the role that good fortune plays in research.
“Luck is not usually associated with what goes on in science,” he said. “But I have had enough lucky events occur in my own research to know that, as Louis Pasteur said long ago, ‘In the fields of observation, chance favors the prepared mind.’”
One of Rischbieter’s finest moments in the field of paleobotany resulted in a lucky find in 1997 in Brazil. As his uncle drove him and his father – somewhat erratically, he said – to a former mining site in Santa Catarina to search for plant fossils, Rischbieter glanced fortuitously at a favorable rock formation on the side of the road.
“Holding on for dear life as we were twisting and turning up this muddy, terrible road, I happened to see a large outcrop of rocks right on the edge of a terribly sharp turn and yelled at my uncle to stop, which was not an easy thing to do,” Rischbieter said. “He wanted to keep on driving. It was super lucky that I had been looking in the right direction. I could have easily missed it. I grabbed my trusty rock hammer and proceeded to crack rocks for nearly three hours and came up with around 300 pounds of amazing plant fossil-bearing rocks, so much more than I could imagine. We never did make it to that coal mine we were searching for, as it turned out.”
The good fortune did not end there, Rischbieter said. As it turns out, thought the area was well researched by other paleobotanists, no one else was able to study rocks like those he found that day. They were exposed, as chance would have it, by a road crew that was excavating the rocks to use elsewhere as road filling.
Because his uncle knew the minister of mines and minerals for that region of Brazil, Rischbieter was able to secure a halt to the road work and have the area designated a national historic site.
Years later, Rischbieter was inspired by his wife, Diane, to clear the 75 pounds of rocks out of the couple’s garage, a move which allowed a PC student to curate the collection and led to the publication of “A new flora from the Rio Bonito Formation (late Asselian) and its implications for the biostratigraphy of the southern Parana Basin, Brazil” in the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.
“It was a long, long haul from 1997 to print,” said Rischbieter. “I was prepared in some sense to at least be in the right place, more or less, but I never would have imagined what I did end up finding and what a critical location that turned out to be in terms of understanding the fossil plant story of Brazil. And, yes, it all was accomplished with a little Brazilian luck.”
In addition to the announcement of the 2024 Professor of the Year, several other PC faculty members were recognized for their academic work this year.
Professor of Spanish Dr. Mark Cox was named the 2024 Dr. Kenneth B. Orr Faculty Research Fellow. The Orr Fellowship was created in memory of Orr, a PC president emeritus who passed away in 2016.
This year’s Freymeyer Award went to associate professor of English Dr. Kendra Hamilton. The Freymeyer Award was created in honor of professor emeritus of sociology Dr. Bob Freymeyer, who spearheaded PC’s creation of the Honors Day Symposium and was a champion for student research.
PC students, particularly members of the Class of ’24, were honored, including the following:
Departmental Awards
Outstanding Senior in Accounting – Caitlyn Elizabeth Murphy
Outstanding Senior in Analytics – Mickey Charles Walker
Outstanding Senior in Biochemistry – William Patrick Johnson
Outstanding Senior in Biology – Samuel Lawton Evans
Outstanding Senior in Chemistry – Andrew Todd Polatty
Outstanding Senior in Communications Studies – Madeleine Grace Hopkins
Outstanding Senior in Computer Science – Briana Santiago-Swindell
Outstanding Senior in Economics – Reiley Grace Lambert
Outstanding Senior in Education – Stephanie Elizabeth Squires
Outstanding Senior in English – Kiersten Nicole Phillips
Outstanding Senior in French – Madeleine Grace Hopkins
Outstanding Senior in History – Maya Nicole Reyes
Outstanding Senior in Management – Jeanette Isabella Healy
Outstanding Senior in Marketing – Charles Wallace McDaniel
Outstanding Senior in Mathematics – Kathryn Elizabeth Dover
Outstanding Senior in Music – Daniel Victor Martens
Outstanding Senior in Physics – Ashton Johnson Shannon
Outstanding Senior in Political Science – Suubi Mutebi
Outstanding Senior in Psychology – Kinsey Evann Bailey
Outstanding Senior in Religion – Morgan Rene’ Berry
Outstanding Senior in Sociology – Sarah Elizabeth Herring
Outstanding Senior in Southern Studies – Madeleine Grace Hopkins
College Service and Community Awards
Jack and Jane Presseau Community Service Award – Mickey Charles Walker
Fraternity Scholastic Award – Pi Kappa Alpha
Sorority Scholastic Award – Alpha Delta Pi
American Legion Awards – Avery Lee Milhorn and Suubi Mutebi
Joseph O. Nixon Leadership Award – Rafael Blas Guerra and Briana Santiago-Swindell
Billy Tiller Award – Alex Michael Herriot
Frank Dudley and Catherine Wyman Jones Award in History – Patrick Alexander Buchanan
Fraser Bible Award – Sarah Grace Stanley
Hay Bible Award – Patrick Alexander Buchanan
Joseph Graham Miller Award – William Patrick Johnson
Jane Hammet Award – Kaitlyn Anne Tucker
Wall Street Journal Award – Reyna Marie Coston
Dr. Eric A. Johnson Fellow – McKenzie Lauren Jackson
SGA Leadership Awards – Johanna Collins Bodkin, William Avery Fogle, Rafael Blas Guerra, Kennedy Elise Perry
Senior Achievement Awards
Olamiposi Abiola Awosanya
Morgan Rose Berry
Simran Kaur Chhatwal
Ryan Jeffrey Galloway
Payton James Hibler
McKenzie Lauren Jackson
Jordan Aaron Johnson
Reiley Grace Lambert
Xiomora Phaneice Lindsay
Lorenzo Roland Nagy
Kennedy Elise Perry
Kiersten Nicole Philip
Maya Nicole Reyes
Kaitlyn Anne Tucker
Reagan Baleigh Turner
Mickey Charles Walker
Malcom DuBois Wiley II
Academic Excellence Awards
Kaitlin Genevieve Atkinson
Kinsey Evann Bailey
Kasey Alexandria Battle
Morgan Rene’Berry
Bradley Richard Cammarata
Simran Kaur Chhatwal
Reyna Marie Coston
Kathryn Elizabeth Dover
Samuel Lawton Evans
Ryan Jeffrey Galloway
Hailey Michelle Grocholski
Madeleine Grace Hopkins
Connor Sant Hudson
Kathleen Margaret Iacobelli
McKenzie Lauren Jackson
William Patrick Johnson
Reiley Grace Lambert
Elizabeth Faye Lane
Avery Thomas Long
James Crawford McCollum
Charlotte Beth McGuinness
Avery Lee Milhorn
Caitlin Elizabeth Murphy
Landon Isaiah Norizsan
Morgan Rose Norris
Josephine Mweni Nyakundi
Natalia Mari Papotto
Riya Katelyn Patel
Morgan Danielle Perkins
Kiersten Nicolle Phillips
Andrew Todd Polatty
Michael Lorenzo Ramirez
Maya Nicole Reyes
Kaylee Grey Rollins
Briana Santiago-Swindell
Ashton Johnson Shannon
Stephanie Elizabeth Squires
Trent Chance Thompson
Reagan Baleigh Turner
Hannah Elizabeth Wootten
Kali Ce’Leste Zmistowski
