Students, faculty bring home awards from annual Alpha Chi national competition

(April 13, 2018) JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. — Carson-Newman University’s Tennessee Delta chapter of Alpha Chi (AX) brought home several awards and recognitions from the annual Alpha Chi National Convention, held this year in Portland, Oregon, April 5-7.

Linguistics and music student Victoria “Tori” Cannon, of Cookeville, won the Avery Grenfell Church Prize in Anthropology and Sociology for presenting the best paper in the linguistics category. Her paper, “From Schleiermacher to Spivak: A Timeline of the Cultural Turn of Translation,” explored translation theory in linguistics.

“Ms. Cannon’s paper is an example of the fine work done in our Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and World Languages,” said Dr. Kip Wheeler, associate professor of English and the University’s Alpha Chi sponsor. “Although Tori is getting the spotlight for victory this time, our local Carson-Newman chapter of AX has a long-running tradition of winning in various categories at the national convention. No matter what the field is, our students always represent us quite well, even when competing against over 300 other schools across the nation.”

Wheeler also received recognition with two awards — one for Outstanding Sponsor and another for the 2018 Distinguished Service Award in honor of his work as a manuscript editor for Aletheia and for encouraging community service within the Tennessee Delta chapter.

In addition, Alpha Chi’s peer-reviewed journal, Aletheia, will publish English and psychology student Sarah Spaulding’s “Powering Petruchio: Building a Case for Personality Disorder in the Taming of the Shrew.” Spaulding, of Johnson City, won two awards for the work during the 2017 Alpha Chi National Convention.
Other students who presented or submitted work for fellowship consideration this year included:

• Bethany Lemons, of Clinton, who presented “A Cycle of Ambivalent Sexism: The Priming Effect of Pop Culture on Social Perceptions of Women”;
• Joshua Winn, of Round Rock, Texas, who presented “Psychedelic Therapy to Treat Mental Illness”;
• Elizabeth Gitto, of Knoxville, who submitted “Prevalence and Implications of the Female Athlete Triad within Carson-Newman Athletics”;
• Duskin Henard, of Rogersville, who submitted “A Comparison of Mental Toughness in Recreational and Varsity Sports.”

Alpha Chi is a national coeducational academic honor society. Since 1922 Alpha Chi’s purpose has been to promote academic excellence and exemplary character among college and university students and to honor those who achieve such distinction.

Founded in 1851, Carson-Newman is a Christian liberal arts university located in Jefferson City, Tennessee, among the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. The University has over 2,500 students and offers 50 undergraduate majors, as well as associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees.