Alpha Chi Announces New Members, Earns National Honors

The Missouri Delta chapter of Alpha Chi announced this week the names of twelve students and one faculty member who have accepted the invitation to join Westminster’s most prestigious national honor society. New members to be inducted are:

Golly Easterly
Luciana Fernandez
Nicole Hall
Ashleigh Haslag
Hyunji Kim
Jessica Kinkade
Kim Morrison
Anne Mulvey
Alexandra Rauscher
Adam Riggs
Paige Townsend
Andrea Zalis

Dr. Heidi Lavine, Associate Professor of English (Honorary Member)

The new members will be recognized at the Honors Dinner on April 26 and will be formally inducted into the society on May 13.

Highlights of the 2017 Alpha Chi National Convention

Westminster’s Missouri Delta chapter of Alpha Chi attended the Alpha Chi National Convention last week in Louisville, Kentucky, returning with several national honors.

Psychology major Madison Feldewerth ’17 won a Benedict Fellowship for graduate study. Madison plans to study social work at the University of Missouri – Columbia, beginning in Fall, 2017.  Madison is the sixth Westminster student to win this fellowship and the third in the last five years.

Westminster’s delegation to the Alpha Chi national convention snaps a selfie at the Troll Pub Under the Bridge in downtown Louisville.

H. Y. Benedict fellowships are for the first year of graduate study toward the master’s, doctor’s, or professional degree at any recognized institution. Ten Benedict Fellowships worth $3,000 each are awarded each year by Alpha Chi. The Benedict Fellowship honors the society’s first president, Dr. Harry Benedict.

Chapter sponsor Dr. David Jones was re-elected by convention delegates to the Alpha Chi National Council (Alpha Chi’s governing board) for a third and final term from 2017-2021.  He was first elected to the Council in 2009 and was elected as the President of the Alpha Chi National College Honor Society in 2015.

The Missouri Delta chapter was recognized by Alpha Chi’s Region IV once again as a Star Chapter of Alpha Chi.  Only forty-six of Alpha Chi’s more than four hundred chapters earned that designation this year.  The Missouri Delta chapter has won this award fifteen times.

Four students presented their scholarly work at the convention.  Though none won convention presentation prizes this year, Dr. Jones notes that each student represented Westminster College extremely well.

The presentations were made by:

Madison Feldewerth. “Reducing regret and aggression: The effect of attachment and choice communication aids”

Karley Long. “The greater good”

Alexandra Rauscher. “If you give a mouse a cookie, you learn to write a hypothesis”

Nathan Wilson. “One weapon to change them all: An analysis of the social impacts of military revolution in medieval Japan and medieval Europe during the late 15th to early 16th century”

Convention delegates attended over 200 student presentations, participated in regional business meetings and in chapter strengthening sessions, and heard two national speakers, 2017 Distinguished Alumnus Dr. Ed Madden, poet, activist, and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina, and Dr. John Janovy, Varner Professor at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and director of the Cedar Point Biological Station.