2012 Graduates
Luke Waring was one of the Top Collegiate Scholars in the College of Arts and Sciences. Luke’s concentration was religion and the environment with a pre-law interest. His senior project was directed by Dr. Sherry Cable of the Department of Sociology. Luke’s senior project was entitled “American Evangelical Christianity and Opposition to Environmentalism: Thematic Analysis of Resisting the Green Dragon and Semi-Structured Interviews.” During his years at UT, Luke has been involved in more worthwhile activities than we have room to list. Close to his senior project was his service on the Chancellor’s Committee on the Campus Environment. As a senior he was President of the Honors Ambassador Program and the Managing Editor for Humanities and Social Sciences for Pursuit, the Journal of Undergraduate Research. At the Chancellor’s Honors Banquet Luke received the Chancellor’s Citation for Extraordinary Academic Achievement. He graduated as top student in the College in the Humanities. Luke plans to attend law school.
Jayanni Webster was named one of the 2012 Torchbearers, the highest honor given to undergraduate students at the University of Tennessee. In 2011 Jayanni was selected to participate in PBS’s fiftieth-anniversary reenactment of the 1961 Freedom Rides. Her senior project, carried out under the direction of Dr. Rosalind Hackett of Religious Studies, was entitled “Peace Education and Its Discontents: An Evaluation of Youth Violence and Peace Programs in Northern Uganda. “ To pursue this research Jayanni has spent a significant amount of time in Uganda. On campus, she has been involved in Jazz for Justice, a non-profit organization that raises funds and awareness of the plight of war-affected youth in Northern Uganda. She has also been a leader in the UT student chapter of Amnesty International. One of the most dynamic College Scholars, Jayanni has been a significant figure at UTK. It has been said of her that “all of us on campus are richer because she is here.” After returning to Uganda this summer, she is now back in the USA, deciding which NGO (non-governmental organizatiotion) she will join.
Elizabeth Williams developed a concentration in Sociology and Policy in Education. Her senior project entitled “Educational Apartheid: The Dismantling and Resurrection of Educational Inequality in the US and South Africa, Studies in Critical Sociological Theory” was carried out under the direction of Dr. Bob Kronick. This project grew out of her experience in a service learning course in a local Title 1 Elementary School, work that she continued for the rest of her college career. She followed up with a summer internship at the Netter Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the premier program in the country for campus-community involvement, and a study-abroad program at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Elizabeth has been a tireless worker for educational equality wherever she goes. She once had to excuse herself from the weekly College Scholars Seminar because she was leading a group of 60 volunteers to local elementary schools. For the first step of her graduate career in educational policy, Elizabeth finally chose the Big Apple over Harvard and Penn; she is pursuing her master’s at Teacher’s College, Columbia University.