OUR RECENT GRADUATES

In May 2023, we were delighted to award the Department of Humanities Karol Wojtyla Medallion to Natalie Anderson ’23 CLAS.

Natalie joined the ranks of our Wojtyla medallion winners “who have not just excelled in their studies but whose love of wisdom has been stirred into a flame during their undergraduate studies.” Her Humanities professors concurred that this is a most fitting description of her intellectual excellence throughout her studies in the department. In Natalie’s senior essay, “The Ecstatic Soul in the Age of Mass Culture,” she eloquently asked a pressing question: “In a society of psychologically intrusive and manipulative mass culture, how do we aim for and achieve authentic human experiences?”

Natalie received her award at the 2023 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Medallion Ceremony, along with fellow Humanities students who were receiving medallions in other disciplines: Sarah VanFleet ’23 CLAS, Biology, and Stephen Terry ’23 CLAS, History. 

AJ Fezza ’23 CLAS was awarded the Department of Humanities Outstanding Senior Essay Prize for his Honors thesis, “‘Should We Just ‘Let People Enjoy Things?’: An Examination of Pleasure and Popular Appeal as Bases for Value Judgments.” This yearlong project was culmination of AJ’s work in both Humanities and the Honors Program. 

The awards committee was delighted with “the intellectual ambition and heartfelt spiritual and moral scope of this wide-ranging and yet dynamically focused piece that brought together [AJ’s] majors in Humanities and Communications … the Platonic form of a Humanities senior thesis.” That is praise indeed.

The thesis was advised by Paul Camacho, PhD (pictured here with AJ) and Eugene McCarraher, PhD.