News

Lee English professors, Drs. Kevin Brown, Chad Schrock, and Will Woolfitt, along with 10 students from Lee’s English Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta, recently traveled to Savannah, Ga. to attend the Sigma Tau Delta International Convention.

Each spring, Sigma Tau Delta hosts a convention that allows hundreds of students with a passion for English to come together and network with other students, professors, and respected authors.

“The students have the opportunity to see a world beyond Lee by attending the convention,” said Brown. “They have the chance to spend time with one another and their professors, which helps build bonds that will make their life and work here at Lee richer than it would have been otherwise.”

At the convention, the group presented both critical and creative works, sat in on workshops, chaired presentation panels, and heard nationally and regionally-known authors speak. Schrock and Brown also moderated several paper presentation panels.

The students in attendance were Tyler Beckett, Jackie Campbell, Don Carpenter, Karen Chambless, Neil Cooney, Kayla Dykes, Jason Lawrence, Rachel Lesler, Shylah Slaughter and Kaitlyn Smith.

Smith received 3rd place in British and World Literature for her paper on W.B. Yeats. This category had more than 200 submissions.

Lee student Yan Wei, who was unable to attend the convention, submitted an essay on the convention theme, River Current, which was named one of the three best of the convention out of 230 submissions.

As one of the most active chapters, the Lee group was asked to bring a display to show the events they have put on over the past year.

“What I love most about the convention is that it gives Lee students an opportunity to share their work and hear the work of their peers,” said Brown. “What I find every year, and what they find, is that Lee students are competitive with students around the country. They have the chance to see that they do good work here at Lee, which encourages them to push themselves even farther when they return.”

Sigma Tau Delta was established in 1924 and began at Lee University in 1992. As Chapter Sponsor, Brown and other faculty encouraged the members to submit their own analytical papers or creative writing to the conference.

For more information on Sigma Tau Delta or the convention, visit www.english.org/sigmatd/about/index.shtml.

Pictured here: (left to right, front row) Campbell, Chambless, Dykes, Slaughter, Lesler, and Smith (back row) Cooney, Woolfitt, Beckett, Brown, Jason Lawrence, Carpenter, and Schrock. Also pictured is Third Place winner for Yeats paper Kaitlyn Smith (l to r) Brown, Woolfitt, Smith, and Schrock.