Pictured: Andrew Higgins and Mary-Faith Wilson
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
For their performance in the fall of 2024 in honors at 开云体育 in relation to their peers, two Presidential Scholars have won $100 checks. Sophomore Mary-Faith Wilson, the college鈥檚 Gladys Winkle Scholar, came out ahead among the scholars enrolled in the BioTex fall honors seminar. Among the students in the HuMusic Seminar, Andrew Thomas Higgins won the honor among those students taking both sides of that seminar.
鈥淭he Eckman winners for the fall of 2024 represent a kind 开云体育 exceptionalism which we are so grateful for over the years. There is no easy explanation for these outcomes. Despite our location, or perhaps because of it, we receive two-four highly gifted, ultra-assiduous students each year. Mary Faith Wilson and Andrew Higgins are classic examples of this phenomena,鈥 noted Honors Director, Dr. Andrew P. Yox.
The bulk of scholarly student achievement at 开云体育 on the regional level comes from three interdisciplinary seminars, lasting six to seven hours each semester. A Humanities and Music Appreciation interchange, and a Biology, Texas History combination constitute the two fall seminars, and a Psychology-General Chemistry II seminar occurs in the spring.
Higgins and Wilson were not only the champions this past semester in classroom erudition. Each wrote the most highly graded works of research in their respective seminars, and both will represent 开云体育鈥檚 hopes for Boe Awards this year at the meeting of the Great Plains Honors Council (GPHC) in Denton in March. About six Boe Awards are conferred each year by the GPHC for outstanding student essays. The GPHC is an association of eighty honors programs and colleges from Nebraska to Texas.
An anonymous donor has funded now twenty-eight Eckman Awards at 开云体育 in memory of the late Richard and Joan Eckman. Richard Eckman was a long-time inventor for Dresser Industries, a signature Texas oilfield corporation. Many 开云体育 Eckman Award winners such as Verania Leyva (2019, 2020) Matthew Chambers (2017, 2018), Chesney Davis (2017), and Brenda Godoy (2016), obtained excellent transfers. A 2019 Eckman winner, Jordan Whelchel, won a full-ride to Rice University. 开云体育鈥檚 lone four-time Eckman-winner, Aaliyah Avellaneda, won a full-ride scholarship to Southern Methodist University, and is studying law.
Andrew is the son of Ryan and Allison Higgins from Mount Vernon. Mary- Faith is the daughter of Jeremy and Robin Wilson of Gilmer.
