Our Outstanding Students

Students in the TCNJ School of Culture and Society have remarkable achievements that stem from their dedication to learning and enrichment both inside and outside of the classroom.

Click on the boxes below and read on to learn more about some of the student who call the School of Culture and Society their home.

About Our Students

Every year students in the TCNJ School of Culture and Society have remarkable achievements.  Here is just a small sample of how our students made us proud in the 2009-2010 academic year:

An anthropology student volunteered at a reservation in South Dakota as part of his experiential learning project. A student of Arabic is doing in an internship now in Washington, DC with the International Labor Rights Forum. Criminology students working on crime data from Lawrence Township wrote up a report for the Township Police that led to the implementation of changes in policing patterns in the township.  English students won “best future teacher – elementary school level” and “best future teacher – high school level” at a national conference for students in English education; only one such award in each category is presented each year and for the first time ever one college won both awards: TCNJ!

One of our students majoring in journalism and professional writing had an internship with the Trenton Times this past summer; the internship turned into a job this fall. Students in English routinely hold internships in publishing agencies in New York and run the visiting writer series every semester. A student of history won the NJ State Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship, and four history students presented papers at the National History Honor Society Conference. An international studies major spent the summer in Moscow in an internship position working on human rights and trafficking.

Last year a philosophy student won an award from the Massachusetts Democratic Party and gave a short speech in front of 6,000 people to accept the award. A recent political science major published an article based on his senior thesis in a refereed journal.  A student majoring in Psychology won a $2000 research prize for her presentation at a conference. In 2010 all the students graduating with a major in Spanish – 100% - were placed in teaching jobs or graduate schools with fellowships. A sociology student is a volunteer intern with the Armenia Volunteer Corps at a mentoring center for youth in Armenia. One of our WILL students is the OxFam NJ representative this year – the second time in a row that the NJ representative to OxFam is a TCNJ student. A Women’s and Gender Studies student won a prize for her paper at the annual Mid-Atlantic Women’s & Gender Studies Association Conference.

When our students graduate, they go on to jobs in business, the media, non-profits, and government agencies.  They also go on to Fulbright Scholarships (one in Poland and one in France right now), Teach for America, the Peace Corps, graduate school and professional school.  Our students have an excellent rate of acceptance at law schools and medical schools.

Pictured above, senior honorees gather at the annual School of Culture and Society Awards Ceremony.

Profiles of Our Students

The TCNJ Moot Court Team reached an historic milestone at the 2010 Eastern Regional Moot Court Tournament. All five teams, made up of students who prepared for the competition through an academic course specifically tailored to the experience, advanced to the second day of the competition and one team went on to compete in the semi-final round.

Senior Political Science major Elizabeth Carbone and junior History major Abigail Wallach both received awards as top orators, Elizabeth finishing third and Abigail eighth out of the 80 students competing in the tournament. Only the top ten students receive such honors on an annual basis. The pair also qualified for the National Tournament at Tulane Law School in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Junior Josh Luger worked closely with his professor, Dr. Daniel Crofts, to step into the role of "historian" before even earning his degree. Josh is currently working with Crofts to write a paper that will serve as an introduction to the edited diary of Henry Campbell, a Civil War soldier from Crawfordsville, Indiana, who began his career as a bugler and eventually rose through the ranks to become an officer. During the summer, Josh traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana for two weeks of historical research, which he spent visiting five institutions and pouring through countless collections of microfilm and historic documents pertaining to Campbell's life and career. "Dr. Crofts recruited me for the project after having me in a class and I was immediately excited to learn of this opportunity to practice the historian’s craft," said Josh. "After reading the diary, we realized that there was indeed a project and that archival research was necessary to uncover the story of Henry Campbell." Josh said that this endeavor will likely serve as the basis for his senior capstone project.

Student Accomplishments

Each year, our students are recognized for a variety of accomplishments in a range of fields and disciplines. Here is a selection of these accomplishments from the 2009-2010 academic year:

Our students studying Criminology continue to benefit from Ralston Foundation Fellowships for Crime Analytics, and in that context work with the Lawrence Township Police Department. Graduates often go on to participate in graduate programs in criminology or law at Harvard, Penn, Rutgers, Seton Hall, Villanova and USC, to name just a few. English majors are routinely honored at the annual conference of Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society, for their scholarship and teaching. Recent students have enjoyed study abroad experiences in Paris, Israel, and England, as well as internships with Scholastic Publishing, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Rutgers University Press. These experiences lead English graduates to pursue a variety of career paths in the humanities, business, publishing, higher and K-12 education -- even with the French Ministry of Education! Those studying History can look forward to graduate programs all across the globe, from the London School of Economics to Yale. Many also participate in undergraduate research projects with faculty members, some requiring travel research in the US and others as far as Africa and Tajikistan. Some of our recent International Studies majors have gone on to the Peace Corps assignments and Fulbright Scholarships in Poland and France.  This is not surprising since they usually "catch the study abroad bug" while fulfilling the study abroad requirement for their major in IS.  Many of our IS majors participate in TCNJ's Model UN Club (competing at college-level Model UN programs) and help to run TCNJ's high school Model UN competition. Last year, a World Languages & Cultures student studying Spanish was awarded the New Jersey Department of Education Award for outstanding student teacher, while others won scholarships to study abroad. In addition, many students each year take advantage of the Languages Across the Curriculum program, which allows students to infuse foreign language in other courses to further build their proficiency and build connections to languages in courses that do not usually include a foreign language component. These one-credit independent studies encompass a variety of disciplines and courses, each unique to the individual student. A 2007 Philosophy graduate was #1 in his class at William and Mary Law School, and another 2007 Philosophy BA was elected president of the Duke University Law School Class of 2011.

We have Political Science alumni in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, which is arguably among the best public policy programs in the US. Last year two of our students held internships in the Governor’s office. In the last few years, Pre-Law C&S graduates have gone on to the following prestigious law schools: Harvard, Penn, Georgetown, William & Mary, University of Virginia, Notre Dame, George Washington, and Fordham. Recent Psychology alumni have gone on to PhDs in neuroscience and clinical psychology; last year close to 20 Psychology students had presentations accepted for the Eastern Psychological Association conference. One of those students won a Psi Chi Regional Research Award for her presentation. Some students choose to participate in Service after Graduation. We have alumni in Teach for America, the Peace Corps, and Avodah, a Jewish service mission. Another one of our students is teaching English in Beijing on another program. Our Sociology alumni are graduate students in the top sociology doctoral programs, and current students have traveled as far as Nicaragua to relate sociological concepts to international affairs. Finally, One of our WILL students, majoring in Women's and Gender Studies, will be the OxFam NJ representative this year. This is the second time in a row that the NJ representative to OxFam is a TCNJ student. A WILL 2010 graduate won a Phi Kappa Phi national scholarship last year, and a WGS student won a MAWSA Prize for undergraduate scholarship last year.