Four Southern University English majors received top honors when they took first prize in the Reanitsa K. Butler Memorial Scholarship essay contest at the annual Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc.
SU students Ashley Cox, Natalie D’Auvergne, Marquita Gill and Jessica Johnson attended the conference held in Baton Rouge on February 15-17. Each walked away with an award and $300.00.
The topic for their papers was based on this year’s theme “African American Lives: Before and After Katrina.”
“The inspiration for my essay was my interest in the media and how it portrays African-Americans,” Ashley Cox, a senior English major from Baton Rouge, said. “The media coverage of Hurricane Katrina appeared to be one sided to me, so I chose to highlight those aspects of the storm.”
The candidates were critiqued on their overall delivery (voice control, language and coherence), passion for the subject, receptiveness and captivation of the audience.
The candidates were sponsored and coached by Dr. Cynthia Manson, associate professor of English, Cynthia Bryant, associate professor of English, Mary Joseph, professor emeritus of English, Jo Ann Marx, a professor of English, all from Southern.
According to the coaches, the students had been prepared weeks prior to the competition.
“After the students finished their papers, we assisted in strengthening their word appropriateness, coherence and enunciation,” Bryant said. “We requested that they get plenty of rest and assured them that they were ready.”
Apparently the rest and weeks of practicing paid off because of the teams competing in this division, Southern University placed first with Morehouse College coming in second and Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C. placing third.
“I don’t believe that any of us were nervous when it was our time to present,” Cox said. “We had the attitude as if we knew we were better than our competition, so we were anxious to compete against the other, supposedly more prestigious, Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”
Southern Conference on African-American Studies began in 1979 as a result of the responsive turnout for a state-wide African American History and Culture program at Texas Southern University.
To keep the successful momentum alive and expanded, TSU officials decided to coordinate intellectual activities geared at interpreting and preserving the African-American history and culture.
The annual conference committee makes attempts to hold the convention on a HBCU campus or related institution with intent to site each former confederate and border state.
Bryant also said the English department plans to revamp the English club, Kuumba, a Swahili word meaning creativity, to accommodate similar competitions on campus with ambitions to travel to other schools and contend.