Six BYU-Hawaii students recently presented papers at the Phi Alpha Theta Regional History Conference held at UH-Manoa on February 12. One of the students, Lindsay Yamauchi Leeworthy, brought home joint-honors for the best undergraduate paper, entitled "Behind Tomb Walls: The Ancient Egyptian Rise to Modernity."
Other presenters from BYU-Hawaii included Ryan Lathen, Patrick Taylor, Jeffrey Potter, Reid Luszeck, and Keith Jefferies. Dr.'s Michael Allen, Kerri Inglis, and James Tueller accompanied the students and helped preside over the ten sessions of presentations. This is not the first year that BYU-Hawaii students have brought home prizes from the Regional competition. Papers ranged on topics from Machiavelli to Anthrax to the Russian Revolution, showing the wide variety of student interests.
Phi Alpha Theta is the National Honor Society in History, and is the largest four-year college honor society in the country with 839 chapters in 50 states and boasting 281,000 members. BYU-Hawaii chartered its Xi Delta chapter in 1968, with 10 members. In the years since, our on-campus society has inducted an additional 200 faculty and students. Potential members must maintain at least a 3.0 average and have taken at least 12 credits of history.
Leeworthy and her fellow presenters are among forty current history majors on campus which are supervised by Dr. Jared Ludlow, department chair. History majors incorporate studies from at least three major world cultures in order to broaden their global understanding and tie in with the University's mission to produce men and women whose influence will help establish international peace.
Recent BYU-Hawaii history alumni have moved onto prestigious schools and promising careers. Part of this success has been fueled by student-professor research associateships that are funded by the University and which provide the mentoring, credit, and means for students to produce a project of significant scholarly depth. These projects are frequently presented at National Conferences and in several countries.