C-N students excel at 2025 Alpha Chi National Honor Society Convention

Carson-Newman University students made a strong statement at the 2025 Alpha Chi National Honor Society Convention. Hosted virtually from Little Rock, Arkansas, the April event featured students from Alpha Chi’s 300 chapters nationwide competing for scholarships, prizes, and graduate fellowships.

This year, members of Carson-Newman’s Tennessee Delta chapter of Alpha Chi brought several honors back to Mossy Creek. Those earning awards were:

• Kylee Condra won a separate $200 development grant from the National Office to help pay for registration fees for graduate school.
  
  
• Abby Earley won a $3,000 H.Y. Benedict Fellowship for graduate school for her senior honors project in psychology, “The Horrors of Male Biases: A Study of the Relationship Between the Haunted House Industry and Gender.”
  
  
• Emily Kledzik won the Thelma Hall Prize in Creative Writing for her collection of poetry, “Allure of Appalachia.”
  
  
• Leslie Osborne won the Ann Kneavel Prize in Economics for her “S&P 500 Market Efficiency: A Measure of the Relationship Between the S&P 500 and Presidential Election Outcomes.”
  
  
• Tegun Spoon won a $3,000 H.Y. Benedict Fellowship for graduate school for his paper on Biblical and Theological Studies, “The Roman Trial in the Fourth Gospel.”
  

“This outstanding performance has made 2025 one of the best years for scholarship winners at Carson-Newman,” said Dr. Kip Wheeler, C-N professor of English and Alpha Chi sponsor. “Our students usually win at least one big prize when we compete, but we had quite the sweep this April. My congratulations to these students and faculty advisors, Dr. Amanda Ford and Professor Kelli Williams. These prizes are a testament to the quality of their scholarship and their education.”

Alpha Chi National College Honor Society invites to membership juniors, seniors, and graduate students from all disciplines in the top 10% of their classes. Active on nearly 300 campuses nationwide, chapters induct more than 8,000 students annually. Since the Society’s founding in 1922, Alpha Chi members have dedicated themselves to “making scholarship effective for good.”