Senior Kevin Delaney, junior Zachary Usher, sophomore Kirsten Holtje and senior John McMackin III placed in the Thomas Jefferson essay contest.

students approached the prompt with different ideas, they all agreed that race was a socially constructed institution that still affects society today.

The 11th annual Philip L. Carret Endowment Thomas Jefferson Essay Contest rewarded the students for their presentation of knowledge on the subject.

Sophomore Kirsten Holtje won $1,000 and a trip to Monticello, Va., for her first place essay, “Race and Indian Policy in the Jeffersonian Era.”

Junior Zachary Usher won $600 for his essay “Holding the Wolf by the Ears: the negotiated balance between justice and national preservation.”

Seniors Kevin Delaney and John McMackin III both won $400 for their essays “All Men are Created Equal or are They? How changes in the Racial Perception of Native Americans Shaped Policy” and “Jefferson and Race: American Ideals and American Reality” that tied for third place.

“This year we received twice as many papers and the overall quality was much higher,” said Charles Irons, assistant professor of history, one of the judges.

New members at Trustees meeting

The Elon University Board of Trustees swore in four new members at its annual spring meeting on campus April 20 and April 21 including Louis DeJoy, Katherine Weaver, Walter Latham and Michael Bumbry.

DeJoy, chief executive officer of New Breed, Inc., received an unexpired term during the Board’s January election, but was sworn in at the weekend meeting.

Weaver and Latham were elected to serve four-year terms, and Bumbry will serve a two-year term as the Board’s youth trustee.

Weaver, president of Residence Development Company, also serves on the William A. Stern Foundation and UNC-Greensboro Weatherspoon Arts Foundation Boards, and Latham is a chairman and founder of MedFacts, Inc.

Bumbry is a senior broadcast and new media communications major at Elon.

The Board planned to vote on a number of important topics at last weekend’s meeting, including taking the final vote on next year’s tuition increase.

Art students present project

Kristen Ringelberg, assistant professor of art, and three art history students presented their project last weekend in Lisle, Ill., at the 2007 ASIA Network Conference.

The group’s project was called “The Internationalization of Japanese Art,” and was presented at the ASIA Network Freeman Student-Faculty Research Projects Poster Session during the three-day conference.

Student presentations at the conference included senior Alexa Little’s “Art Institutions,” Thomas Spradling’s “From Ukiyo-e to Anime” and alumnus Leslie Mumme’s “Contemporary Artists and Diaspora.”

The conference also included keynote speakers and various panel sessions where experts spoke about certain topics related to the history and culture of countries from several different regions of Asia.

This ASIA Network Conference marked the 15th year that the Asian-oriented conference has taken place.