MONMOUTH, Ill. — Three history students presented research papers last month at the annual Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference at Wheaton College, and two came home with special honors.
Phi Alpha Theta is the international history honor society, and the students were accompanied by professor of history Stacy Cordery, who co-advises Monmouth’s Beta-Phi chapter with department colleague Bill Urban.
The Monmouth students’ papers grew out of Cordery’s “Historical Methods” class and made use of the Lewis L. Gould Collection of historic documents in Hewes Library. Each of the papers had to be edited down to 12 pages, and that work was done under the supervision of associate professor of history Simon Cordery.
“Winning two awards is an extremely prestigious accomplishment, especially because first place was taken by a graduate student,” said Stacy Cordery.
Sophomore Hope Grebner took second place for her paper, titled “Dirksen and Johnson: Friends and Foes in 1960s Washington.” Senior Paige Halpin received a third-place award for “Despite the Growlings: The Unlikely Friendship Between George F. Perkins and Theodore Roosevelt.”
Sophomore Tiffany Lefler presented a paper titled “Congressman Hamilton Fish: No Blood on My Hands.”
“Just being chosen to present a paper at this conference meant our students had already passed a competitive test,” added Cordery, who chaired a session of the conference titled “World War II and Nuclear War.”
Some of the other institutions that sent students to the conference included Bradley University, Western Illinois University, Benedictine University, Olivet Nazarene University and the host school.