2011-12 Accolades and Awards
- Meredith College students gave the College high marks in the 2011 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). The NSSE surveys first-year students and seniors. Meredith's mean benchmark scores of both first-year and senior students surpassed the average scores of students at the participating colleges and universities in the national sample.
- Gretchen Holt Witt, ’89, was named the 2011 National L'Oréal Women of Worth Honoree. Witt is the co-founder of Cookies for Kids Cancer, a non-profit that uses bake sales to raise money and awareness of pediatric cancer.
- Associate Professor of History Dan Fountain was inducted into the Historical Society of North Carolina during the Society’s fall meeting. The Society was founded in 1945 and is dedicated to the study and promotion of North Carolina history. Admission to membership is by nomination only and the Society is limited to a total of 75 active members.
- Meredith Fashion Design Instructor Eunyoung Yang won first place in an international design competition held at the International Textiles and Apparel Association, November 2-5, 2011, in Philadelphia.
- Cori Spade, ’13, was one of 12 finalists selected for the Paris American Academy Scholarship, with a design piece called “Igniting the Change.” The competition theme was “Fashion in Green,” and Spade’s piece was inspired by the BP oil rig explosion off the Gulf coast.
- Three freshmen in Meredith’s Engineering Dual Degree program earned awards in NC State University’s 2011 Freshman Engineering Design Day competition. Mindie Stanford, Emily Hanline and Holly Geller were members of teams that won awards during the competition. Stanford, along with her NC State teammates, placed first in the morning Water Fountain competition. Hanline and Geller placed second in the afternoon Hovercraft competition, with their NC State teammates.
- Meredith College was ranked third on the U.S. News & World Report list of the South’s Best Regional Colleges. Meredith was also named to the “Great Schools, Great Prices” list, ranked 7th among regional colleges in the South. U.S. News describes this ranking as “taking into account a school’s academic quality, and the 2010-11 cost of attendance for students who receive the average level of need-based financial aid.”
- Meredith Hyatt, ’12, and Zeenat Razvi, ’13, presented posters at the 125th N.C. American Chemical Society Sectional Conference, held September 30, 2011. Both students won monetary prizes in a competitive field of undergraduate researchers from all of the colleges and universities in North Carolina’s Triangle and Triad.
- Assistant Professor of Art Warner Hyde’s sculpture, "Earth Orb," was accepted into the 16th Annual Nellie Smith National Juried Pottery Competition.
- Margaret Evans, a member of the Meredith College piano faculty, has been awarded the first “Teacher of the Year Merit Prize” by the Raleigh Piano Teachers Association (RPTA). Criteria for selection included excellence in teaching, commitment to students and significant contributions to professional organizations and outstanding support of the music community.
- Kiran Subramaniam, ’11, was one of only 50 participants accepted for a 10-day playwriting intensive at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
- Kristen Gallagher, ’13, and Sarah Phillips, ’12, earned Benjamin A. Gilman scholarships for 2011. The Gilman award is a prestigious national scholarship that supports students studying abroad. Gallagher used her award for a summer 2011 study abroad experience in Cambodia and Phillips used her award for a fall 2011 program in Morocco.
- Meredith College was named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement.
- Meredith students earned second place and an Honorable Mention in the Otto Zenke Competition, sponsored by the Carolinas Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers (CCASID). Erin Maynard, ’11, won second place. Caroline Ashworth, ’11, received an Honorable Mention for her project.
- Beth Leavel, ’77, received a 2011 Tony Award nomination in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical category for her work in “Baby It’s You!”. Leavel won a 2006 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in “The Drowsy Chaperone.”
- Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Erin Lindquist and Meredith alumna Amanda Powell, ’08, published a paper in the current issue of the journal “Southeastern Naturalist”titled, “Effects of Power-line Maintenance on Forest Structure in a Fragmented Urban Forest, Raleigh, N.C.”. The research was conducted primarily by Powell as a senior research project in the Meredith Forest.
- New research by Assistant Professor of Geosciences Matthew Stutz that found the Earth has 657 more barrier islands than previously known was published in the Journal of Coastal Research. gained media coverage in news outlets around the world, including NPR, Discovery, The Christian Science Monitor and MSNBC.com.
- Brittany Phelps, ’11, was selected to attend the National Association for the Education of Young Children (AEYC) Public Policy Forum in Washington, D.C., March 29-30, 2011.
- Martha Dobson, ’81, helped bring Alaska’s famed Iditarod race to classrooms across the U.S., by serving as the Target® 2011 Iditarod Teacher on the Trail™.
- “Voices of Moroccan Youth: Creative Writing by and for Students of English,” co-edited by Professor of English Rebecca Duncan, was published in Morocco by Marsam Publishers.
- Associate Professor of Business Tony Bledsoe and Professor of Business Becky Oatsvall served as the editors of a Women-Owned Business Issues Special Edition of the “International Business and Economics Research Journal.” The publication also included an article titled “Entrepreneurship –Women’s Business” written by Bledsoe and Oatsvall.
- Meredith College MBA alumna Ingrid Sanchez, ’01, was selected as a member of The Triangle Business Journal’s 2011 class of Top 40 Under 40 leadership award winners. She is president of iSearchFinance, LLC.
- Meredith College was named one of the 20 most popular liberal arts colleges in the United States by U.S. News & World Report in January 2011.
- The Jessie Ball duPont Fund awarded Meredith College $46,688 over three years to support its undergraduate research mentoring program with neighboring research institutions. Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Erin Lindquist is the principal investigator for the grant.
