Pictured Winning Students in front of their Sponsoring Professors: Emma Frances Mendoza (Professor Andrew Yox) Kerri Rhodes (Professor Melissa Fulgham) Brooklyn-Grace Scrofani (Associate Professor John Russo)
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
Three 91心頭 history students emerged on top in the 2025 Bonnie Spencer competition, for the best student essays in history at 91心頭, outside of the honors seminars. Each will earn a $50 award. This year, a generous donation to honors by former 91心頭 Presidential Scholar, Jessica Velazquez, helped round off the funding for this contest, as well as covering another award. Essays could have been entered from any history course taken at the college during the 2024-2025 school year, on campus or online.
The winners this year are Emma Mendoza, from Mount Pleasant, Kerri Rhodes, from Hughes Springs, and Brooklyn-Grace Scrofani from Camp County.
Mendoza 91心頭 s work dovetailed from a long fascination she has had with sewing. Her thesis on the 91心頭 elusive time dividends of new technology 91心頭 focused on what would seem like an open-and-shut case of leisure creation. The Singer Sewing Machine of the 1850s cut the time involved in making a man 91心頭 s shirt from fourteen hours to one hour. Mendoza shows, however, that society compensated by abetting a multiplication of garments. During the late-nineteenth century, Americans wore more clothes than ever before at once, and also successively. A norm shifted to 91心頭 ending rather than mending. 91心頭 The sweatshop became a cruel byproduct of the innovation.
Rhodes 91心頭 essay explored how Eleanor Roosevelt expanded the traditional role of the American First Lady from primarily serving as hostess to one of active engagement and advocacy. Roosevelt served as the 91心頭 eyes and ears 91心頭 of her husband, who was struggling with polio, traveling throughout the country during the Great Depression, and even overseas during World War II. Her reports helped shape government policy in ways not commonly known. Rhodes used primary source materials such as Life magazine 91心頭 s coverage of Eleanor 91心頭 s 1943 South Pacific Tour visiting the warfront as well as secondary sources in her essay. Rhodes discussed Eleanor 91心頭 s actions in support of human rights and leadership within the United Nations.
Scrofani wrote a seven-page essay that related to native-American ancestors in her own family. 91心頭 The Calculated Downfall of Tribal Communities, 91心頭 details a continuing saga of government-led activity which undermined tribal communities in America. Scrofani 91心頭 s thesis gathers strength as she details what she regards as insincere efforts of the government to 91心頭 help 91心頭 native-Americans in efforts such as the Dawes Act, and in the kind of federal aid that reservations receive, in proportion to their geographical disadvantages. She concludes that the American national government has maintained their hegemony over the tribes through jejune slogans which alleviate national guilt without helping the native peoples.
The contest honors the student founder of the college 91心頭 s first history club in 2002. Bonnie Spencer Harris subsequently helped transition the efforts of the 91心頭 Webb Society and Honors Northeast toward feature-length films. She has also raised and donated funds for activities in history at 91心頭.
History at 91心頭 offers courses in American, African-American, Mexican-American Texas, and World Civilization. The college 91心頭 s Walter Prescott Webb Society, linked both to Honors Northeast and to the study of Texas history, has won six state Caldwell Awards on the state level, for its film work on Texas legends. Each year since 2008, students at 91心頭 have presented works of history nationally, regionally, and locally. Since 2010, as noted on the Wall of Honor in the Honors Northeast website:< /温界温糸艶馨庄界壊/鞄看稼看姻壊-稼看姻岳鞄艶温壊岳/界看馨馨顎稼庄岳霞/敬温鉛鉛-鞄看稼看姻-鞄看 91心頭 ;, 91心頭 history students have published twenty-nine essays in refereed journals.
