'Pulse' to Hold Undergraduate Student Lecture

April 26, 2010

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The Pulse, the undergraduate journal of Baylor University, will feature a lecture by sophomore University Scholar Josh Jeffrey on "Dante, Aquinas, and Trajan: Reconciling Freedom and Orthodoxy in The Divine Comedy as part of the Honors College Living-Learning Center Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 27, in the Alexander Reading Room on the Baylor campus.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature Jeffrey discussing the theology of Thomas Aquinas, the legend of the Emperor Trajan and Dante's view of free will in relation to baptism.
Jeffrey's paper is this year's winner of the Wallace Daniel Award for Undergraduate Writing. This prize is presented annually by Phi Beta Kappa, a national scholastic honor society, to the best paper published that year in The Pulse. The award carries a $200 cash prize and the opportunity to present The Pulse student lecture.
"The Wallace Daniel Award is a very prestigious prize signifying a high degree of accomplishment for an undergraduate scholar," said Dr. Susan Colón, associate professor in the Baylor Honors Program and faculty sponsor for The Pulse. "This year's Pulse Student Lecture superbly illustrates the interconnections between course work and scholarship, as well as between the disciplines of literature and theology. It will be great opportunity for students to engage as well, since many of them have read Dante's Divine Comedy and have thought about Dante's treatment of the righteous pagans in Limbo."
The new edition of The Pulse journal will be released at Jeffrey's lecture. Free copies of The Pulse will be given to all attendees.
More than 45 essays were submitted to The Pulse for publication this semester. Pulse editors selected five essays to be published in the new edition.
The Honors College of Baylor University established The Pulse undergraduate journal in 2004 as an effort to encourage undergraduate scholarship through publication opportunities. Every semester several undergraduate essays are published in The Pulse both in print and online.
More information about the student lecture and journal, including archives of past editions, can be found at The Pulse web site, www.baylor.edu/pulse.
by Lillyan Baker, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805