Call it the year of the woman. When the College of Arts and Sciences selected its Dean’s Medalists for 2001, it was a clean sweep for the female gender.

Dean's Medalists for 2001 (from left) Kate McDaniel, Lisa Homann, Rebecca Hendrickson, and Jessica McMorrow..

The Dean’s Medal recognizes the top student in each of the College’s four divisions—arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences—based on grade point average, difficulty of courses taken, and recommendations from the student’s department.

“These students’ accomplishments are astonishing,” says David Hodge, dean of Arts and Sciences. “They are students who thrive on academic challenge. They take full advantage of what the College has to offer and add so much through their enthusiasm for learning.”

For Lisa Homann, Dean’s Medalist in the Arts, the honor is particularly satisfying. After completing three years at another college, she decided to leave school. She worked for the next few years, taking on increasing responsibility and “making more money as a 23-year- old without an education than anyone I knew.” But she was not thrilled with the work, and she eventually decided to pursue her real interest—art history—by returning to college.

“This is not the case of a star student with a long, magnificent, and unblemished record,” says Jerome Silbergeld, professor of art history. “Rather it is an inspiring case of bootstrapping and persistence, of a slightly older student who has struggled to find herself and her purpose.... Now she is magnificent, but she wasn’t always.”

Although Homann had “no self confidence whatsoever” when she arrived at the UW, she did have something she lacked the first time around: motivation. “I went back to school when I was ready,” she says. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve been completely focused and totally motivated. I think my success in winning the Dean’s Medal was all about effort.”

Homann’s professors believe her talents go far beyond that. “I remember writing on her final exam my regret that I could not give her a 4.1, as she was simply ‘off the charts,’” recalls Silbergeld. Adds Professor Rene Bravmann, “Here was a student with little background in the history of art, but a young woman deeply interested in the relationships between creativity and society.... She has an eye and ear for cultural and expressive detail that is most impressive.”

Beyond her coursework, Homann organized an undergraduate research symposium in art history that attracted students and faculty from around the country. “She produced a conference that I found superior to our own nationally recognized annual graduate symposium,” says Silbergeld. “This wasn’t just one exceptional moment. Lisa consistently operates at this high level.”

Homann plans to pursue a career in academia—but not just yet. Her goal for the next year, she says, is “to make some money and to give my husband, who is an artist, a chance to work on his portfolio.”

Jessica McMorrow, Dean’s Medalist in the Social Sciences, also plans to take time off before heading for graduate school. “I need a break,” she admits. “I’ve been working really hard.”

No argument there. McMorrow, a history major, has done extensive research on Irish history, including a study of medieval women in Dublin that is soon to be published in a volume of scholarly essays.

“I was pretty surprised,” says McMorrow of being published. “It was a term essay I had written while I was at Trinity College in Dublin for my junior year. When I went to collect it, the professor asked me if he could publish it in a book he was editing.” The professor, Sean Duffy, is the world’s leading authority on medieval Dublin.

McMorrow’s UW professors were less surprised. One notes that a research paper McMorrow wrote as a sophomore “is almost certainly publishable in an historical journal.” Another describes McMorrow as “the finest undergraduate historian I’ve taught in 41 years.”

Had her ankles not given out, McMorrow might never have majored in history. In high school she was working toward a career in ballet. “But I was injured a lot of the time,” she recalls. “I had a chronic ankle injury that stopped my progress. I realized I would not be strong enough to be a professional ballet dancer.”

McMorrow has continued to dance, taking ballet courses at the UW and studying Irish step dancing and ballroom dancing off campus. “Right now my favorite is ballroom dancing,” she says. “I think that having dance in my life makes me a more well-rounded person.”

	A&S Dean's Medalist Rebecca Hendrickson (above, with UW President Richard McCormick) also received the President's Medal.

Rebecca Hendrickson, Dean’s Medalist in the Sciences, also seeks opportunities that balance her academic work. Although her two majors—neurobiology and biochemistry—are extremely demanding, she is a strong believer in volunteerism. While at the UW, she has served as a science tutor for novice nuns in a Buddhist monastery and has served as student area coordinator for Amnesty International.

“I started with Amnesty International in high school,” says Hendrickson. “I had been tutoring ESL students since I was 11 or 12, and after a while I was able to predict, watching the news, what new group would arrive in the U.S. and need help. I wanted to find something that wouldaffect the root problem, so I started an Amnesty chapter.”

Given her interest in societal problems, it makes sense that Hendrickson gravitated to the neurobiology program. “A neurobiology degree will allow me to use techniques of science to look at larger questions: why and how people act the way that they do,” Hendrickson explains.

Hendrickson heard about the neurobiology program from a friend. “I remember listening to him talk about his neurobiology classes and being so jealous,” Hendrickson recalls. “Then I realized I could just add it to my biochemistry degree.”

Combining two of the college’s most challenging degrees might seem overly ambitious to most. But Hendrickson not only survived the added pressure but thrived on it, earning a 3.97 GPA. Her stellar efforts have earned her an impressive list of honors, including UW Junior Medalist, Goldwater Scholar, Merck Award in Chemistry, and finally the President’s Medal, which is awarded to the University of Washington’s most exceptional graduating senior.

Hendrickson, who worked in three faculty research laboratories during her years at the UW, will enter the M.D./Ph.D. program at Washington University in St. Louis next fall. (“I’ll have a really confusing C.V.,” she jokes.) Her long-term career plans including returning to Seattle to practice medicine and conducting research on the neural basis of mental illness.

Kate McDaniel, Dean’s Medalist in the Humanities, also graduated as a double major, combining philosophy and the Comparative History of Ideas (CHID). “I thought I wanted to be a physics and philosophy double major,” McDaniel says, “but I started the physics too late to complete all the requirements for the major. And I was really intrigued with CHID.”

McDaniel was particularly taken with the “amazing community of people and the energy” in the CHID program. “But intellectually, my home was in philosophy,” she says. “I think philosophy is noble. I think it is special. It is a kind of discipline that lends itself to developing better people. We are the home of critical thinking.”

McDaniel’s professors certainly view her as a critical thinker with exceptional insights. “Kate is the most brilliant and the best trained logician this department has produced during my tenure of over 40 years,” writes Philosophy Professor David Keyt. “And logic is only one part of her studies.”

John Toews, professor of history and director of the CHID Program, says that McDaniel’s determination is as impressive as her intelligence. “Kate loves a challenge,” he says, “and pursues a level of excellence that sets her apart from other students. ...When she was puzzled by one of the more difficult books on the syllabus, she read it three times—and gathered additional information about [the author] so that she could more effectively comprehend his work.”

McDaniel served as a peer facilitator for a CHID junior colloquium, encouraging discussion and working with students on their writing. She also headed the Society of Undergraduate Philosophers (SUPs) for two years, working to build community within the Department of Philosophy. Activities included faculty presentations; meetings about the department’s undergraduate program; movie night, at which students watched a film and then had a philosophical discussion about it; and pizza night, at which students would read a paper in advance and discuss it.

“The goal was to provide undergraduate-to-undergraduate connections and improve undergraduates’ connections with faculty and graduate students,” says McDaniel. “I think there should be more opportunities for friendship centered on academic connections.”

McDaniel plans to pursue a career in academia or law. Which path she’ll take is still unknown. She will spend the next year bartending—and thinking about her future.

“I want to take time off from school to think about what kind of life I want to pursue,” she says. “I need to decide on my priorities. We often don’t spend enough time on reflection. That’s what the next year is about.”

[Summer 2001 - Table of Contents]