Department of Language and Literature
News: Department announces winners of departmental, university awards

5/2/08 | Three students from the Department of Language and Literature have been recognized this spring for academic excellence, winning awards and honors at both the departmental and university levels.

Senior Literature major Gail Bush received the Award in Academic Honors for the College of Liberal Arts for 2007-2008, marking the second time in two years that this award has been conferred on a student from the Department. Awards in Academic Honors are given to students who have distinguished themselves by positive achievement in their field of study. These students have achieved a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or better and have either completed research of consequence or have been published in their field.

Sridevi Ranganathan, a Literature major who graduated from Benedictine in December 2007, was also recognized this spring, receiving the Department’s Outstanding Senior Thesis Award in English Language and Literature. Her senior thesis, “Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Orphaned: The Maternal, the Monstrous, and the Metamorphosis of Familial Hierarchy in Survival Horror Video Games,” was praised by her advisor, Dr. Wilson Chen, as “an innovative, theoretically sophisticated essay.”

Finally, Literature major Melissa Feinberg was named a Wingspread Fellow for the upcoming academic year. The Melvin Brorby Wingspread Fellows Program brings students from 14 colleges and universities throughout the Midwest to professional conferences held at “Wingspread," the estate designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Herbert F. Johnson, Jr., the third-generation leader of the Johnson Wax Company. Ms. Feinberg joins Jennifer Erickson, a senior Literature and Political Science double major, as one of four Wingspread Fellows from Benedictine.

The Department congratulates these students on their outstanding achievements.