About
The Frank and Rachel Anne Laney Award recognizes the graduating senior who has written the finest essay reflecting on the value of a Millsaps liberal arts education.
In order to satisfy the Core 10 requirement, all graduating seniors must submit essays in which they reflect on the value of their liberal arts education. A faculty panel chooses ten finalists whose papers are published as a record of the seniors’ reflections. The one winning essay is then selected each year for the Laney Award based upon its excellence in thought and expression. In order to pass down the wisdom of the graduating seniors, the winning paper will become required reading for incoming freshmen the following year.
The award was established in honor of Frank and Rachel Anne Laney as a tribute to their commitment to excellence in higher education. Dr. Laney was a professor of history for 34 years at Millsaps. During his tenure he served as Dean of the College from 1962-1969 and chaired the History Department from 1971-1984, during which time he was named Distinguished Professor of the Year. In 1987, he helped organize and lead the College’s successful effort to secure a Phi Beta Kappa Chapter. Mrs. Laney was Frank’s best friend and is loved by all who meet her. She is gracious and supportive to faculty and staff alike and attended nearly every event at Millsaps – student recitals, Singers and Players performances, football games, lecture events, and ceremonial occasions. In short, Dr. and Mrs. Laney worked tirelessly on behalf of the College.
Millsaps prides itself on being an institution that teaches students not what to think, but how to think – and we now have the Laney Award to honor and preserve our students’ thoughts about the College and our philosophy of teaching and of the life well lived.
The Frank and Rachel Anne Laney Award is made possible through the generosity of the Phil Hardin Foundation.
2019
Laney Award Winner
“Write This Way: Towards the Truth and Stories Worth Telling”
Roxanne ElShamy
Laney Award Finalists
“I Am A Destiny”
Bailey Smith
“Bigger Than Me”
Braxton Thomas
“Leadership: Moments and Choices”
Christian Zamiela
“A Reflection of My Time at Millsaps”
Jenna Gibson
“What College is Supposed to Teach: A Reflection”
Mason Shrader
“How Does College Prepare Young Adults for ‘The Real World’?”
Miranda Gaup
“Hundred Acre Wood”
Nathan Gatlin
“A Life Built by Captured Moments: Designing One’s Life to Change Others”
Nicholas Sandoval
“It’s All Coming Together (Or, I Went to College, and All I Got Was This Hat)”
Rachel Bravenec
“A Demon by the Name of Self-Doubt”
Randon Heim
“An Ode to Chaos and Professors”
Sarah Rimmer
2018
Laney Award Winner
“A Student, A Citizen”
Kendall Hardy
Laney Award Finalists
“My Three Purple Suitcases”
Elizabeth Hambuchen
“Examining the Multifaceted Value of a Millsaps Education”
Emily Hussey
“A Millsaps Experience”
Adam Booker
“Perfection Isn’t Everything”
Lauren Gaddie
“‘Femininstincts:’ A Lesson by Mother Millsaps”
Sarah McLean Archer
“Core 10 Essay”
Sarah Altman
“Untitled”
Nigel Stinson
“Millsaps + ___ = SUCCESS”
Alaina Thurber
2017
Laney Award Winner
Reflective Essay
Rachel Long
Laney Award Finalists
“On Cores and Kinships”
Anna Schwartz
“The Endless Narrative: Despite “Things Gone Silently Out of Mind””
Leah Travis
“Measuring the Immeasurable: Reflections on the Trade Offs of a Liberal Arts Education at Millsaps”
Catherine Arjet
“A Walk in the Garden”
Mariah Gibson
“Ad Excellentiam Per Viam Millsaps”
Brittany Hardy
“Understanding the World and Finding the Freedom in it: A Gabby’s Guide”
Gabriella Rincon
Reflective Essay
Gwenyth McDonough
2016
Laney Award Winner
“Making the Strange Familiar”
Hannah Saulters
Laney Award Finalists
“Black Drink”
Diane Bravenec
“Ad Perfectum et Ad Excellentiam”
Edna Chuckwuemeka
“Building Character and Courage at Millsaps”
Madison D’Angelo
“On Forming Tangential Lines to a Focused Whole”
Mary Frances Ivey
“Self-Determination: A Millsaps Story”
Katie Lane Kirkland
Reflection Essay
Anthony J. Vernaci III
“Millsaps College and the Liberal Arts: Connecting the Dots of an Unsuspecting Childhood”
Ericka Wheeler
2015
Laney Award Winner
“Numbers 2.0”
Resham Rahat
Laney Award Finalists
“Untitled”
Elizabeth Allen
“Our Words Matter”
Katharine Aten
“Finding Me”
Danielle Buckingham
“It’s Ok to Not Know”
Bailey Duhé
“Untitled”
Sara Jane Humbert
“Leaving Plato’s Cave”
Megan Rebman
“Untitled”
Michala Sullivan
“Untitled”
Emily Wilson
2014
Laney Award Winner
“The Illusions of the Social Well: A Millsaps Undoing”
Anna Claire Gary
Laney Award Finalists
“1701 North State Street”
Syed Ali
“Untitled”
Sara Del Castillo
“On Millsaps and Coming Home”
Laney Lenox
“Millsaps College: Moving Beyond Practicality in Search of Passion”
Megan Starke
“A Different Kind of Millsaps Bubble”
Dorothea Staursky
“Popping the Bubble”
Morris Wilson
2013
Laney Award Winner
“The Outlier You Want to Keep”
Victoria Wheeler
Laney Award Finalists
“Untitled”
Suzanne Glemot
“Liberal Arts: A Gift that Can’t be Packaged”
Katie Greer
“Music: The True Magic of the Liberal Arts”
Jordan Hammons
“Changed for Good”
Elizabeth Land
“There Are Too Many Idiots in This World”
Treshika Melvin
“Heritage, the Canon, and Opinions”
Jessica Muller
“Untitled”
Jake Warren
2012
Laney Award Winner
Laney Award Finalists
“Core 10 Paper”
Kaitlin Short
“In More Ways Than One”
Mallory Satcher
“Porque se tenga entera noticia de mi persona: A Picaresque Journey through the Liberal Arts”
David Guyott
“Perceptualized”
Eamon Cottrell
“I Am Not One”
Casey Holloway
2011
Laney Award Finalists
“Ubuntu and Other Defining Moments”
Bryan Dupree
“The Rhyme of All”
Emma Sloan
“The Globalization of the American Dream”
Jana Mertens
“Il faut participer: The Liberal Arts Dialogue”
Joe Muller
2010
Laney Award Winner
Laney Award Finalists
“Voices: Learning to Listen”
Nadia Al Hashimi
“Millsaps: Forever Constant in My Life”
Erin Fleming
“Sponge Runners and the Sanity of Paradox”
Lloyd Gray
“Fancy White Columns and Yellow Carbon Copy Slips”
Cartiér Gwin
“Case Studies”
Bradley Nicholson
“I Ain’t a Statistic”
Kimberly Sampson
“Scratching the Surface”
Amanda Smithers
“Major Musical Moments”
Rachel Tillay
2009
Laney Award Winner
“The Good Thieves”
Dominique Powell
Laney Award Finalists
“Deep Roots for Rich Living”
Chad Bowen
“We’re All In This Thing Together”
Andy Carlson
“Facing the Future through the Past: Learning by Experience”
Candice Fisher
“How I Spent My Summer Vacation”
Molly Fromkin
“Lost”
Kathleen Hamm
“My Four Twins”
Christie Kokel
“So What Are You Going To Do With That?”
Stephanie Maxwell
“Core 10 Reflective Essay”
Kristie Mueller
“Aegrescit Medendo?: Reflections on the Reconstruction of Self”
James Rice
2008
Laney Award Winner
“Niggas Don’t Do That”
Chelsi West
Laney Award Finalists
“My Quilt of Words”
Elaine Blaine
“Track Listing: A Millsapsian’s Soundtrack”
David Chandler
“Laughter and Tears: Millsaps’ Effect on My Limbic System”
Erica Cooksey
“Boxes Are What We Live In”
Walt Duncan
“Slower to Speak”
Ashley Hewitt
“Core 10 Paper”
John Kellogg
“Identity Crisis”
Ka’trevia Kirk
“Studying Myself to Death”
Thomas Richardson
“Trading My Degree for a Diamond Tiara”
Beth Sadler
2007
Laney Award Winner
“The Fixer-Upper”
Chris Spear
Laney Award Finalists
“Millsaps: A Place That Has Changed Me But Has Not Changed”
Ashley Davis
“Mississippi Mud”
Emma Doineau
“The Journey”
John Douglas
“From Jackson to Jackson: The Memories of Hometown Boy”
Samuel Griffin
“A Game Played to Win”
Renee Hebert
“Questions”
Jessica Hoffpauir
“Moving On”
Caroline Morrison
“My 4.0 Failure”
Ashley Wilbourn
“Re-invention and the Bookstore: My Morbid Fascination with Language and Literature”
>John Yargo
2006
Laney Award Winner
“Last Flight Out”
Jason Jarin
Laney Award Finalists
“Millsaps Words”
Georgia Beilmann
“Not Better, Not Worse, Just Different: A Journey from Disapproval to Acceptance”
Sarah Cowan
“Millsaps College Meets My Inner Beast”
Andrea Dewey
“Life Beyond the Skeletons”
Allison Ertz
“Answering Their Question”
Brandon Fontenelle
“Lacrimae Rerum: The Tears of a Classics Major”
Drew Harmon
“The Art of Being Uncomfortable”
Reshonda Jenkins
“Beer and the Search for Truth: A Reflection on Time Spent at Millsaps”
Christopher Robinson
“Having Trouble with Language”
Bethany Santucci
2005
Laney Award Winner
“Your Silence Will Not Protect You”
Casey Parks
Laney Award Finalists
“The Beginning, the End, and Everything In-Between”
Doc Billingsley
“Reflections with a Homeless Man”
Scott Colom
“Revolutionizing Liberal Arts: When Equations Do Not Suffice”
Jillian Compton
“In Preparation for a Walkabout”
Stacy Douglas
“Liberal Arts: The Freshman Fifteen, Biology, a Small Red Tree, and Self-Discipline”
Alexa Golliher
“Finding Strength in Numbers”
Jessica Lester
“The Day I Threw Away My Rose-Colored Glasses”
Lane Williamson
2004
Laney Award Winner
“A Second Hand Account”
Ashley Nichols
Laney Award Finalists
“Finding My Artistic Self: A Reflection on the Past Four Years”
Leslie Aldridge
“The Ultimate Journey”
Sonya Brown
“The Praxis”
Nicole Christopher
“Confessions of a Supposed Former Chicken Tender Eater”
Jason Hatt
“I Guess I’m Already There”
Matthew Luter
“Poet, novelist, tower”
Charles Mock
“Notebook 2000-04: In Search of Glimmerings”
Michael Pickard
“Faith, Fragments, and the Search for Foundations”
Kenneth Townsend
“I Am No Rhodes Scholar But I’m Doing Alright”
Lauren Turner
