Baker Scholars Archives - ��Ƶ & Sciences

The ��Ƶ & Sciences Honors 2023 Tropaia Award Winners

Hayden Frye — Fri, 19 May 2023 19:21:12 +0000

The Georgetown University ��Ƶ & Sciences gathered in historic Gaston Hall to honor exceptional graduating seniors and outstanding faculty members at the 104th annual Tropaia Exercises.

The awards ceremony, which takes its name from the ancient Greek word for trophy, honors graduating seniors for their outstanding accomplishments, both within and outside of the classroom. This year, Alanna Cronk (C’23) was awarded the Coakley Medal, Alisa Colon (C’23) the Kraft Medal and Sam Telesa (C’23) the Louis McCahill Award. Amira Ali (C’23) delivered the Cohonguroton Address.

Alanna Cronk

Alanna Cronk, who is Ventureño Chumash, received the Coakley Medal, which is awarded annually to the ��Ƶ & Sciences senior who, in the opinion of the faculty, most embodies the “qualities of loving service, honor and courage in all phases of their college life.”

Cronk, a philosophy major with minors in English and public health, has been active on campus since arriving as a transfer student from Chapman University just two years ago. In that time, she has received a multitude of accolades, including the Ryan Medal, bestowed by the ; the Hypatia Diversity Prize, awarded by the academic journal Hypatia; the Penner Research Award, given through the and the G+JI Fellowship, awarded by the .

Cronk recently submitted an honors thesis titled “Community vs. Carcerality: Weaving Logics of Care in Policy and Programs for Indigenous Peoples Experiencing Suicidality.” According to Cronk, she’s been interested in the carcerality of psychiatric care since taking her first disability studies course with , an adjunct lecturer in the .

“In my thesis, I wanted to integrate the things I had learned about Indigenous philosophy and the practical knowledge I was gaining in public health,” said Cronk. “As a Ventureño Chumash person, and given that American Indian/Alaska Native peoples have the highest rates of death by suicide, I felt really compelled to spend time breaking down how the medical and legal systems fail to provide equitable care, cause harm while proposing some theoretical and practical solutions in this space.”

She has worked as a research assistant with , an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy, helping coauthor a paper on federal identity recognition politics and their impact on indigenous and disability communities.

“I do not hesitate when I write that Cronk is the very best student that I have had the opportunity to work with in my career,” wrote Nahwilet Meissner.

In her time on the Hilltop, Cronk also served as a board member of the Circle of Indigenous Students’ Alliance (CISA), where she developed a partnership between the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and CISA that allows students to access the museum’s archives.

“I have learned a great deal about myself,” said Cronk of her time at Georgetown. “The incredible resources here allowed me to develop the best parts of myself and challenge myself in ways that made me so much stronger. My time at Georgetown has taught me about the importance of community and developing relationships. The work I have done with the University has always involved collaboration, and working in partnerships always brings together diverse energies that create amazing outcomes.”

Cronk is excited for the next chapter in her life, embracing graduation with the nuanced perspective of a philosophy major.

“Life constantly changes, and I want to move with it,” said Cronk. “I was grateful every day I was here. I take away enormous amounts of appreciation for my brilliant friends, my incredible Professors, the gorgeous land around campus and, of course, the warm memories of late-night Wisey’s runs.”

The Coakley medal was established in memory of Henry “Hank” Coakley, a Georgetown alumnus and U.S. Air Force pilot, by his wife, Elizabeth Coakley.

Alisa Colon

Alisa Colon received the Kraft Medal, given to the graduating student who embodies a “spirit of humility, cooperation and commitment as a woman or man for others in all facets of college life.”

Originally from the Boston area, Colon has made the most of her time on the Hilltop, majoring in justice and peace studies and minoring in women’s and gender studies. Colon worked as a teaching assistant for , an associate professor in the Department of English, with whom she took several classes.

“Ms. Colon distinguished herself as an insightful reader, thoughtful interlocutor and creative thinker,” said Phillips. “She has a real talent for unpacking difficult theoretical texts and translating them into colloquial language for her peers.”

Outside of the classroom, Colon has been consistently active and engaged. She co-founded the Black Survivors Coalition, a student-run organization dedicated to empowering sexual assault survivors. She also served as a student representative on the Main Campus Core Curriculum Committee’s Engaging Diversity Revision Subcommittee and as the vice president of programming for the Interhall Council. Last summer, Colon interned with PwC through a program focused on nonprofit consulting.

The Kraft Medal was established by Mrs. Cornerlia Kraft McKee in memory of her mother, Katherine Kraft.

Sam Telesa

Sam Telesa received the Louis McCahill Award, given to the student of the graduating class who has “shown perseverance and determination of a high order in pursuing his or her educational objectives at Georgetown.”

Telesa is a student-athlete and anthropology major who balanced his time between the classroom, the weight room and the gridiron. Born in American Samoa and raised in Hawaii, Telesa was able to connect his coursework in anthropology with his own family’s history, dissecting the complex relationship between colonialism and academia.

Telesa is part of the Baker Scholars Program, a highly-selective and prestigious program open to students in the ��Ƶ & Sciences who possess a demonstrated interest in business and have strong records of academic achievement, community service and leadership.

Professors and coaches alike have noted Telesa’s natural leadership ability. Telesa served as co-president of the Georgetown University Christian Athletes organization and led weekly chapel services for the football team.

Alongside a demanding academic and athletic schedule, Telesa worked several jobs, as a curriculum assistant for the Georgetown Scholars Program, a site coordinator for the Washington National Youth Baseball Academy and a field engineer intern for a local construction company. After graduating, Telesa will pursue a graduate degree and play football at the University of New Mexico.

The McCahill Award was established in 1960 by Mr. Eugene McCahill and Mr. Francis McCahill in memory of their brother, Louis, who died in the service of his country in the First World War.

Amira Ali

Amira Ali delivered the Cohonguroton Address at the invitation of the dean, Rosario Ceballo. Taking its name from the Algonquin word for the Potomac River, the Cohongurton Address is delivered by one of the graduating class’s most outstanding students.

Ali, a double major in psychology and government, has been active inside the classroom and around campus during her time at Georgetown. While on the Hilltop, Ali co-founded Guzaarish, a competitive Bollywood fusion dance team that has traveled to five competitions across the country and was invited to perform at Vice President Kamala Harris’ Diwali party. Ali also served as president of the GU Moot Court Team and co-student director of the Georgetown Chapel Choir.

In her remarks, Ali highlighted the names of Georgetown’s unsung heroes, including Washington Walker, a GUTS bus diver; Mo Ogbes, a security guard at Lauinger Library and Lindbergh Barrett, a member of the facilities team for the Village C residence hall.

“That’s the beauty of this campus community – in the ICC, in the VCW lobby, at the Lau 2 tables at 3 am, I have found more love in the corners of this university than anywhere else,” said Ali. “And that’s why Mo, Washington and Lindbergh matter so much: They care for and from the corners.”

Ali encouraged the gathered graduating students to make the most of their education by shaping the world around them with the tools they’ve acquired at Georgetown.

“At Georgetown, we were taught how to grapple with the challenges of our generation – to see innovative solutions, to see things deeply, to see what could be rather than what is,” said Ali. “Georgetown gave us the space to experiment to this end, to imagine our future free from the confines of what is strictly practical, to imagine all that is possible.”

After graduating, Ali will work as a national security paralegal for Morrison & Foerster, a legal practice located in Washington, DC.

Marc Howard

, a professor in the , received the Bunn Award for Faculty Excellence. , a program associate in the (PJI) accepted the award on Howard’s behalf and delivered remarks.

Established in 1967 to honor Rev. Edward B. Bunn, S.J., the award is chosen by a vote of the senior class and presented to the member of the College faculty who “is admired and respected by all students for their service to Georgetown in the classroom and on the campus community.”

Howard is the founding director of the PJI, which houses a slew of programs aimed at addressing the mass incarceration crisis. Within the PJI, Howard teaches the popular Making an Exoneree course, in which students investigate likely wrongful convictions and produce short documentary films highlighting those cases. To date, five exonerees, including Jones, whose stories have been told through the class have either been exonerated or released.

In addition to the Making an Exoneree course on campus, the PJI has an impact off the Hilltop. The PJI’s Prison Scholars Program gives incarcerated individuals in Washington, DC and Maryland the opportunity to take classes while in prison and eventually earn a degree from the ��Ƶ & Sciences. Their Paralegal Program, in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Returning Citizen Affairs and the DC Department of Employment Services, gives returning citizens a path to a paralegal career. The Pivot Program awards a non-credit-bearing certificate in business and entrepreneurship to formerly incarcerated individuals, which is awarded on the basis of both academic work and supported employment.

and review the full list of awardees.

Georgetown Alumna Selected to Host Washington Week

Lynn Delles — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 13:00:00 +0000

Award-winning journalist Yamiche Alcindor (C’09) was recently chosen as the next moderator of the weekly news analysis series . This selection is the next in a long line of notable achievements from the alumna.

A Record of Reporting

From Miami, FL, Alcindor majored in English and government and minored African American studies while at Georgetown. She was also actively involved in the Baker Scholars Program, where she helped to develop the program’s Baker Difference efforts that was committed to linking business opportunities and social impact.

Bernie Cook, associate dean in the College who worked closely with the Baker Scholars Program, says that her passion for journalism and reporting was evident while she was still an undergraduate.

“Yamiche always had a keen sense of the centrality of questions of justice,” Cook explains. “While studying English and government at Georgetown, Yamiche employed the tools of language and analysis to seek deeper understandings. She began to see journalism as a way to connect these threads, as a mode for seeking the truth that is a necessary precondition for justice.”

“We are enormously proud to count Yamiche among the alumni of Georgetown College,” states Doyle McManus, director of . “She’s exactly the kind of journalist Georgetown strives to educate: brilliant, tireless and committed to shining light in dark places.”

While there wasn’t a formal Journalism Program at the time Alcindor was attending the College, she took several Journalism classes from the program’s founding director, Barbara Feinman Todd, and found a valuable mentor in longtime instructor Athelia Knight of The Washington Post. “I was impressed by her passion for journalism,” says Knight. “She was always looking for ways to gain hands-on experience while taking classes…. I think she had an internship every summer while she was at Georgetown.”

From the Hilltop to Covering the Hill

After graduating, Alcindor went on to receive a master’s degree in broadcast news and documentary filmmaking from New York University and has since worked for various news outlets including Newsday and USA Today.

Alcindor has been active in political journalism, covering the Trump administration and the campaigns of several presidential candidates for The New York Times including Bernie Sanders. Currently, she is reporting on the Biden administration.

The alumna is the ninth moderator of the Peabody Award-winning Washington Week. She also works as a White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour and as a political contributor for NBC News and MSNBC.

In 2017, The Root listed Alcindor as one of the top 100 most influential African Americans aged 25-45. She was also chosen for the 2020 Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage from the White House Correspondents’ Association and as the 2020 recipient for the Gwen Ifill Award from the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF). McManus states that he and Alcindor first met thanks to Ifill, “I was lucky enough to get to know Yamiche when the late Gwen Ifill put us together as panelists on PBS’s Washington Week.”

Alcindor is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and was named the organization’s 2020 Journalist of the Year.

Current Baker Scholar and Alumnus Partner to Improve High School Investors Club

Lynn Delles — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 15:59:22 +0000

Liz Schropp (C’21)

Baker Scholar Liz Schropp (C’21) recently partnered with alumnus Mike Scanlan (C’86), dean of administration at St. Benedict’s Prep School in Newark, NJ, to educate high school students about investment strategy as part of a student-run club. The membership in the club has tripled since it was first started last year due in part to the participation of Georgetown students.

Building Bridges

Schropp, who is a mathematics major with a minor in business administration, is involved with the Georgetown University Student Investment Fund (GUSIF) as the former director of personnel. In the summer of 2020, Schropp was introduced to Scanlan through the Baker Scholar’s alumni network and the two realized that GUSIF students could help develop the Gray Bee Investors Club at St. Benedict’s.

The investors club, which was started by high school juniors Justin Crespo and Amari Thompson in March of 2020, began so that students at St. Benedict’s could understand the vocabulary and structure of investing before graduating.

Mike Scanlan (C’86)

When the club first began, students met virtually once a week with alumni of St. Benedict’s who have made financial strategy their careers. They learned from them through lectures and analyses of a simulated stock market game.

However, Scanlan knew that the high school students could also benefit from individuals who were closer to their own age. After meeting Schropp, Scanlan set up bi-weekly meetings with GUSIF students and members of the Gray Bee Investor’s Club.

“The Hoyas are one of the highlights of the club because of the way they relate to the students and make the topics understandable,” says Scanlan. “Since they have become involved, the investors club has grown from 20 to 60 students. My students tell me that they really look forward to the meetings when Georgetown students attend.”

Schropp and Amaan Chaudhry (MSB’21) have expanded GUSIF’s involvement in the club and personalized the Gray Bee Investors meetings since getting involved. During each meeting, two GUSIF members are assigned to a breakout room with 10 students, where they discuss each high schooler’s mock financial portfolio.

Cultivating a Club

Justin Crespo

“Being involved in the Gray Bee Investment Club is fun for us as Georgetown students because investing is something that most of us learned fairly recently,” says Schropp. “We can relate to their experiences as people who are new to this and can anticipate the types of questions they might have.”

Crespo and Thompson hope to expand Gray Bee in the future even after they have graduated.

“Amari and I have already started to work with first-years and sophomores who show potential and responsibility to be leaders of the club,” says Crespo. “We want to see younger guys turn the club into something bigger than it is now, especially since it’s so clear that there is a large interest.”

Thompson also says that he has noticed a huge difference in the club since GUSIF became involved and hopes to continue to develop the relationship between St. Benedict’s Prep and the university.

“I could tell in earlier meetings that younger and newer St. Benedict’s students weren’t as comfortable asking questions during our meetings, but now they feel empowered to ask questions to Georgetown students that they wouldn’t have before,” says Thompson. “In the future, we hope to secure funding so that our students can invest real money. We also want to continue to expose students to universities like Georgetown as an option for the college experience.”

Amari Thompson

“We are also very proud of one of our first club members, Aidan Davis (SFS’24), who’s now at Georgetown and a GUSIF member participating in our meetings as a Hoya, ” Thompson continues.

Scanlan and Schropp are also eager to continue the partnership, which was one upside to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Since St. Benedict’s is in New Jersey and Georgetown in DC, this club only works because of everything we’ve learned in the past year about virtual meetings,” says Scanlan. When the pandemic shut the world down, our world at St. Benedict’s opened up by making us realize we have access to experts around the globe. “It is one way that the pandemic has created new opportunities that will be continued after it has ended.”

Rep. Jayapal Returns to the Hilltop

Lynn Delles — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:43:08 +0000

U.S. Representative and Baker Scholars Program alumna Pramila Jayapal (C’86) with students

U.S. Representative and Baker Scholars Program alumna Pramila Jayapal (C’86) spoke to a large gathering of students in the Intercultural Center Auditorium on Monday, then joined the Baker Scholars for a private reception. Baker Scholar Cassidy Christensen (C’18) provides a student’s perspective on Jayapal’s appearance:

September 28, 2017 — On Monday, the Baker Scholars Program at Georgetown College joined in a discussion highlighting politics, career choices, and the value of a liberal arts education.

Representing Washington’s 7th district, Jayapal is the first Indian-American woman to serve in the U.S House of Representatives and only the second women of color from Washington to win a seat in Congress. Jayapal credits Georgetown’s liberal arts education with helping her achieve success, stating that the educational values established in the College were “the basis for everything I do today … how I think about issues, about rational perspectives that are a part of my conversations, about how I communicate, about how I write.”

Through her status as an immigrant, her degree in English literature, and her involvement in the Baker Scholars Program, Jayapal recognized the value of community, diversity, and public service. After graduating, she moved from a position on Wall Street to the eventual founding of her own nonprofit, .

OneAmerica works to advance the rights of immigrants and reform the U.S. immigration system as a whole. Jayapal’s dedication to furthering immigrant rights stems from her personal experience as an immigrant from Chennai, India, and her conviction that “diversity of experiences and backgrounds” brings valuable perspectives and opinions to the forefront.

Jayapal’s passion and conviction for her message was inspiring, and her ideas resonated with the students in attendance — many of whom had overlapping interests and experiences. Her recognition of the importance of her liberal arts education in fostering a passion for service closely aligns with our values as Bakers and our commitment to being men and women for others.

Thank you to Rep. Jayapal, the Baker Scholars Program, the , the , the GU College Democrats, the , the and the for making this event possible.

Alcindor Named to The Root 100

Lynn Delles — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 23:22:33 +0000

Yamiche Alcindor/Twitter

New York Times��ǳܰ��Բ�� has added another achievement to her already impressive resumé: , a prominent online magazine of African American culture, named her No. 13 in its annual Root 100 list of influential African Americans aged 25-45.

While at Georgetown, Alcindor majored in English and Government, minored in African American Studies, and participated in the Baker Scholars Program. Since graduation, Alcindor has worked for numerous news outlets, including Newsday and USA Today. She joined the New York Times in 2015 as a national correspondent, covering politics and social and racial justice issues.

The Root‘s annual top 100 list uses an algorithm that combines “reach” and “substance” in an effort to calculate the most influential African Americans in politics, activism, media, the arts, business, technology, law, and more. Alcindor’s No. 13 ranking puts her in between actress Tracee Ellis Ross and singer-actress Janelle Monae.

Congratulations, Yamiche!

Baker Scholars Archives - ������Ƶ & Sciences

The ������Ƶ & Sciences Honors 2023 Tropaia Award Winners