Students shine at Fall Honors Celebration
The Fall Honors Celebration took place on October 23 in the Chapel. Photo Courtesy of Julia Sippel.
By Julia Sippel, Staff Writer
This past Friday, Oct. 23, students, staff, family and friends gathered in the Chapel to celebrate the accomplishments of numerous Gettysburgians at this year’s Fall Honors Day. The festivities began with a musical selection by violin duo Selah Kwak ‘16 and Logan Santiago ‘19 prior to an invocation by Chaplain Joseph Donnella II and a welcome by President Janet Morgan Riggs.
In the spirit of Gettysburg and doing “Great Work,” President Riggs praised the awarded students, explaining that they “truly excel both in and out of the classroom.”
Following President Riggs’ lively introduction, Provost Christopher Zappe introduced the celebration’s main speaker and an award winner herself: Professor Radost Rangelova of the Spanish and Latin American Studies departments.
“Most importantly,” Rangelova said in her heartfelt speech entitled Meaningful Accomplishments, Meaningful Acts, “I thank my students, who inspire me.” She in turn inspired the crowd with a quote from Eduardo Galeano: “Al fin y al cabo, somos lo que hacemos para cambiar lo que comos: In the end, we are what we do in order to change who we are.”
Following Professor Rangelova’s speech, Professor Bowman of the History department and Professor Stephenson of the Physics department were awarded the Dr. Ralph Cavaliere Endowed Teaching Award and Johnston Center for Creative Teaching and Learning Excellence in Teaching Award respectively.
From there, the focus switched to the students, with the introduction of Phi Beta Kappa inductees and Linnaean Award recipients.
“I am truly grateful to have been chosen as one of this year’s recipients of the Linnaean Award,” said recipient Fergan Imbert ‘16. “Thank you to those who nominated me and to those who voted…Thank you to my family and friends for always supporting me and for always seeing in me what I sometimes fail to see in myself.”
With these groups of distinguished attendees, their peers sat in attendance for a host of individual awards and those shared on a smaller scale. Ranging from mathematics and business to athletics and characters, these prizes rewarded students for a variety of accomplishments.
Following concluding remarks from President Riggs, the crowd joined Christopher Holben ’16 and Patrice Smith in two verses of the alma mater, “Rejoicing in the Gettysburg spirit.”
