Baylor Senior Recognized as Marion G. Wells Honors Fellow
media contact: Hayley McConnell, Shirley & Banister Public Affairs, (703) 739-5920
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), a national educational organization headquartered in Wilmington, Del., recently selected Kirsten Appleyard, a senior University Scholar from Renfrew, Ontario, Canada, as a Marion G. Wells Honors Fellow. She is one of 50 Honors Fellows selected for the 2008-09 academic year. Each year, ISI's prestigious Honors Program selects the nation's most talented undergraduates to participate in a year-long program of educational enrichment.
Appleyard recently attended a week-long ISI summer conference in Québec City, Canada, titled "Civilization and Civilizations: The West in Context." ISI Honors Fellows at this conference examined how our own Western Civilization relates to, and differs from, other civilizations as they pondered some of the most fundamental and urgent questions of our time. While examining our civilization in context, students had the opportunity to engage in debate and discussion led by outstanding faculty mentors from numerous colleges and universities who teach in the humanities and social sciences.
"The ISI Honors Program is a unique mentoring program offering our most talented undergraduates the opportunity to engage in high-level, one-on-one debate with elite university faculty. Such mentoring opportunities are rare in the modern academy," said John Joseph Shanley, Honors Program Director at the ISI.
In addition, as part of ISI's Honors Program, throughout the next academic year, Appleyard will receive continuing direction from her faculty mentors through participation in small seminars and online discussions about both permanent questions and contemporary concerns. The ISI faculty mentors and staff will provide one-on-one professional assistance to the each of the Honors Fellows, including information about internships, job opportunities, graduate and professional programs and related concerns. Appleyard will also attend an ISI Career Development Seminar, designed to help prepare her for future positions of leadership. In addition, she will receive a large collection of free books and journals.
Founded in 1953, ISI works "to educate for liberty"--to identify the best and the brightest college students and to nurture in these future leaders the American ideal of ordered liberty. For more information about ISI's Honors Program, please visit www.isi.org.