Current News

14 seniors receive Connecticut College´s highest academic honor

Phi Beta Kappa Delta of Connecticut College welcomed 14 new Winthrop Scholars at a ceremony Dec. 12. Top row, from left: Ralph Riedel, Julia Griffin, Christina Comfort, Sally Pendergast, Katherine Buesing and Lindsay Michel. Bottom row, from left: Stefanie Block, Laura Hoffman, Caitlin Baptiste, Samantha Wickman, Jacqueline Cousineau, Kate DeConinck, Caitlyn Turgeon and Keith Byrne.

January 04, 2008

Fourteen Connecticut College seniors have been named Winthrop Scholars, the highest academic honor bestowed by the college. All have also been chosen for membership in Phi Beta Kappa, the national honor society of undergraduate higher education, and will be initiated officially in May.

The students are: Caitlin Danielle Baptiste of Bedford, N.Y.; Stefanie Rae Block of Newton, Mass.; Katherine Rose Buesing of Wilmette, Ill.; Keith Philip Byrne of Plymouth, Mass.; Christina Mae Comfort of Coopersburg, Pa.; Jacqueline C. Cousineau of Salinas, Calif.; Kate Yanina DeConinck of Goffstown, N.H.; Julia Grace Griffin of Amherst, Mass.; Laura Robin Hoffman of Newton, Mass.; Lindsay Paige Michel of West Haven, Conn.; Sally Appleton Pendergast of Weston, Mass.; Ralph Alan Riedel of Wayne, Pa.; Caitlyn Elizabeth Turgeon of Windsor, Conn.; and Samantha Lee Wickman of Franklin, Mass.

Parents, friends, faculty and staff attended a recognition ceremony in December. Blanche McCrary Boyd, the Roman S. and Tatiana Weller Professor of English and Connecticut College writer-in-residence, and Julie Rivkin, associate dean of the faculty, spoke at the ceremony.

In 1928, 17 years after Connecticut College was founded, the practice of honoring Winthrop Scholars - those members of the senior class who demonstrated exceptional scholarship, personal fitness and promise - was begun. The honor was named after John Winthrop, founder of New London and an early governor of Connecticut.

All Winthrop Scholars also receive invitations for induction into Phi Beta Kappa. Admission to the society is based on exemplary academic scholarship over four years of college; members are in the top 10 percent of their graduating classes. The Delta of Connecticut Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was installed at Connecticut College on February 13, 1935.

For more information contact: Amy Sullivan (860) 439-2526; amy.sullivan@conncoll.edu