Seven students were awarded prizes for superior academic work this year.
Yale College Dean Richard H. Brodhead presented the honors during Senior Class Day exercises on May 20. The award-winning students carried special banners during the Commencement procession. Their award citations follow.
Eyi A. Tuakli-Wosornu
The James Andrew Haas Prize
The James Andrew Haas Prize is to be awarded annually to that member of the senior class in Yale College whose breadth of intellectual achievement, strength of character and fundamental humanity should be adjudged by the faculty to have provided leadership for his or her fellow students, inspiring in them a love of learning and concern for others. This year the prize is bestowed upon Eyi A. Tuakli-Wosornu of Timothy Dwight College.
Born in London, Eyi A. Tuakli-Wosornu graduates summa cum laude with distinction in American studies. Her four years here include outstanding intellectual achievements and extracurricular commitment. She has been awarded the Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for her senior essay, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship and a Gates Millennium Scholarship.
From her freshman year participation in the Black Student Alliance to her recent role as the Afro-American Cultural Center's student director, she has left her mark on Yale College and its students. More remarkably, she is a founder of Vision of Virtue, a woman's mentoring group for high school students; of Kwonjo!, Yale's first African dance troupe; and of the 10,000 Tongues Inter-Ivy Gospel Fest. In sum, her leadership shines at Yale and beyond.
Yale takes great pride in bestowing the James Andrew Haas Prize on Eyi A. Tuakli-Wosornu.
Elizabeth Austin Edmondson
The Warren Memorial High Scholarship Prize
The Warren Memorial High Scholarship Prize for the senior majoring in humanities who ranks highest in scholarship is awarded this year to Elizabeth Austin Edmondson of Timothy Dwight College.
As a freshman in directed studies, Elizabeth Edmondson immediately displayed the extraordinary abilities by which she has distinguished herself in her courses and as a writer and editor for campus publications. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa after only four terms of enrollment and now, after completing 39 course credits at Yale, Ms. Edmondson has earned distinction in her history major and graduates summa cum laude, with no grade lower than A- and 32 grades of straight A.
In recognition of her extraordinary achievements as a student, writer and researcher, Yale College is proud to award the Warren Memorial High Scholarship Prize this year to Elizabeth Austin Edmondson.
Abha Khanna
The Arthur Twining Hadley Prize
The Arthur Twining Hadley Prize, which honors the memory of the man who served as president of Yale from 1899 to 1921, is awarded annually to the senior in Yale College majoring in the social sciences who ranks highest in scholarship. This year the Hadley Prize is to be awarded to Abha Khanna of Berkeley College.
A psychology major, Abha Khanna was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year and graduates summa cum laude with distinction in the major. She has completed her degree with an impressive record of no grade lower than A- and 31 grades of straight A.
Ms. Khanna is a serious student with an easygoing manner, a combination that she has brought to her work as a tutor at Yale and that will surely serve her well next year as she begins to teach high school English at Montclair-Kimberly Academy.
In recognition of her exceptional performance and promise of future success, Yale College proudly confers the Arthur Twining Hadley Prize for 2001 upon Abha Khanna.
Samuel Isaac Elder
The Russell Henry Chittenden Prize
The Russell Henry Chittenden Prize is awarded annually to that senior in Yale College majoring in the natural sciences or in mathematics who ranks highest in scholarship. This year's prize is to be awarded to Samuel Isaac Elder of Calhoun College.
Samuel Elder graduates summa cum laude, with the harmonious combination of majors in electrical engineering and music, earning distinction in both. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa at the beginning of his senior year, he has completed 39 course credits in his eight terms, with no grade lower than A- and with 31 grades of straight A, a galvanizing achievement by any standard.
An oboist, pianist and composer, Mr. Elder is a testament to the happy integration of the two halves of the human brain.
In recognition of his prodigious intellectual and artistic gifts, Yale College is proud to bestow the Russell Henry Chittenden Prize this year upon Samuel Isaac Elder.
Matthew Todd Jordan and David Valdez
The Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Arts
The Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Arts for outstanding accomplishments in the creative and performing arts is awarded this year to two students: Matthew Todd Jordan of Saybrook College and David Valdez of Davenport College.
Matthew Jordan possesses a rare talent and an original vision which inspires both those who work with him and all who view his work. His powerful and complex images focus on intimations of the past while they evoke the future of photography.
Mr. Jordan's pictures are "of the moment"; with visual sophistication and intelligence, they present resonant traces of the world gracefully rendered by his artistic sense and technical mastery.
For his achievements and promise as a photographer, Yale College is proud to award the Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Arts to Matthew Todd Jordan.
David Valdez has excelled as an actor and director of exceptional gifts, both in the theater studies program and in other performance venues at home and abroad. His inventive productions show his special talent for comedy, the most rigorous of theatrical genres.
His senior project, a fully staged production of Carlo Goldoni's "Servant of Two Masters," took him to Italy to learn the traditions of the commedia dell'arte, and it brought him back to Yale to organize his own commedia troupe.
For his outstanding accomplishments in the area of stage direction and performance, Yale College is proud to award the Louis Sudler Prize for Excellence in the Arts to David Valdez.
Luke Aaron Bronin
The Alpheus Henry Snow Prize
The Alpheus Henry Snow Prize is awarded to that "senior who, through the combination of intellectual achievement, character and personality, shall be adjudged by the faculty to have done the most for Yale by inspiring in his or her classmates an admiration and love for the best traditions of high scholarship." This year the Snow Prize is awarded to Luke Aaron Bronin of Silliman College.
Luke Aaron Bronin was elected to Phi Beta Kappa after four terms and served as president of the Yale chapter this year. He has earned 36 course credits in Yale College, with no grade lower than A-, and he will graduate tomorrow summa cum laude with distinction in the philosophy major.
With a scholar's love of history, Mr. Bronin remains deeply involved in the events of his own place and time. His research across a range of disciplines informs his involvement with the state penal system, as he questions how punishments are assigned to young offenders. A genuine scholar-activist, he has also organized a program to give teenagers at the Juvenile Detention Center in New Haven the opportunity to make up for the schooling that they missed while awaiting trial.
Mr. Bronin's expansive interests and talents extend also to musical composition and performance. He is adept at a cappella singing in sacred and popular repertories, and is a singer, instrumentalist and composer of folk and country-and-western music. It is a mark of his range that he has won the Bristed Scholarship Prize for Ancient Greek Translation and that music he composed and recorded has been played on the television show "Dawson's Creek." He will continue his studies at Oxford University next year as a Rhodes scholar.
In recognition of his remarkable academic record and in celebration of his exceptional character and his contributions to Yale and to New Haven, Yale College takes great pleasure in conferring the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize upon Luke Aaron Bronin.
C O M M E N C E M E N T
2 0 0 1
Introduction
Baccalaureate Address
Honorary Degrees
Senior Class Day
Teaching Prizes
Scholastic Prizes
David Everett Chantler Prize
Elliott and Mallory Athletic Awards
Robert E. Lewis Award for Intramural Sports
Roosevelt L. Thompson Prize
William H. McKim Prize
Other Undergraduate Awards and Honors
Graduate Student Awards and Honors
Wilbur Cross Medals
T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S
Yale Celebrates 300th Commencement
Festival to feature everything from opera to aerial dancers
Alumni returning to campus for reunion weekends
ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIPS
Exhibit recalls Snowdon's 'irreverent' photographic visions
British Art Center hosting talks, trips, music during International Festival
International Festival of Arts and Ideas: Events on Campus
International Festival of Arts and Ideas: Tours
MEDICAL SCHOOL NEWS
Outreach program bringing seniors to the Peabody
Campus Notes
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