Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt spoke to a sold out crowd Tuesday in McCrary Theatre. The event drew such a large crowd that a remote broadcast of the speech was offered in Yeager Recital Hall.

McCourt’s speech, entitled “Was I Teaching or Was I Learning? I’d Say Both,” investigated the role of the teacher, drawing from McCourt’s own 27-year experiences as an educator. The speech was part of the Baird Pulitzer Prize Lecture Series, which attempts to bring acclaimed journalists and writers to speak at Elon.

Before his 7 p.m. speech, McCourt offered a Question & Answer session in Whitley Auditorium that drew questions from both English and education faculty members and students. McCourt recounted anecdotes about his experiences as both a teacher and writer, and won the audience over with his dry sense of humor.

McCourt’s first book, a memoir called “Angela’s Ashes,” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Award.

Week One RecycleMania Results

The results of week one of RecycleMania, Elon’s campus-wide 10-week recycling competition, ranked Elon 97 out of 140 schools in the Per Capita Division.

Of the five North Carolina schools taking part in the competition, Elon ranked third, trailing behind the UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University.

Elon ranked 44 out of 83 institutions in the targeted materials-cardboard division and 42 out of 87 institituions in the aluminum, plastics and glass category.

After week one, Sheldon Jackson College ranked first, with 13.91 cumulative pounds of recyclables per person. Elon’s cumulative pounds per person is .94.

RecycleMania kicked off two Sundays ago at Varsity. The event was promoted through College Coffee and WSOE.

At the end of the 10-week competition, The Environmental Protection Agency will recognize the school with the most collected recylables with a trophy made entirely of recycled products.

Student wins sociology award

Senior sociology major Nicole Sacco won the Himes Award, the North Carolina Sociological Association’s highest award for outstanding undergraduate research by a student at a four year institution.

Sacco’s undergraduate research deals with birth control, and her work is titled “Pharmacists’ Attitudes Toward the Emergency Contraceptive Pill.”

The North Carolina Sociology Association (NCSA) presents the Himes Award to the authors of the state’s best student sociology papers each year.

The award for the undergraduate category consists of a $150 cash prize and a certificate.

NCSA will recognize Sacco’s work at their annual meeting and will make her paper public on the NCSA’s official Web site.

Sacco completed her research in the fall, in a class with Dr. Angela Jones, associate professor of social justice. Senior Yulia Dudaronak earned the award in 2006.