Graduating seniors earn top awards at Commencement
Winners of the two top undergraduate awards were revealed at McDaniel’s May 20 Commencement ceremony. Julie A. Wilson of Jefferson, Md., won the Argonaut Award for achieving the highest cumulative grade-point average, and Cristina Stockton-Juarez of Carlisle, Pa., received the Edith Farr Ridington Writing Award for the best senior paper.
Julie A. Wilson, a Social Work major with a Business Administration minor, earned a 3.991 grade point average in her entire completed course of study. She graduates summa cum laude with departmental honors in social work. She also received The Maria Leonard Senior Book Award at the Senior Investiture and Honors Convocation.
Wilson transferred to McDaniel after earning an associate’s degree from Frederick Community College, where she was a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society. At McDaniel, she has served as co-president of the Phi Alpha (Social Work) honor society and was inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta (First Year Seminar).
During her senior year, she interned at the Baltimore County Department of Social Services, primarily assisting in the domestic violence division, and spent Jan Term completing an internship with Gospel Haiti, a nonprofit organization focused on providing education and leadership skills to children in Haiti. She has volunteered at Westminster’s Cold Weather Shelter and with Opportunity WORKS at the Human Services Programs of Carroll County, which provides life skills and job readiness training, as well as assisted clients at The Arc Carroll County perform in a barrier-free theatre production.
She has also coached the Frederick Skip Squad, a competitive jump rope team, and worked as a receptionist at a chiropractor’s office. This fall, she will be enrolled in the master’s degree program in Human Services Management at McDaniel and will work full-time as a community living manager assisting individuals with developmental disabilities for Target Community and Educational Services, Inc.
Cristina Anselma Stockton-Juarez, who graduates magna cum laude and a College Scholar with an Art History and Environmental Studies double major, earned the top writing award for her Art History honors paper, “Ancient Andean Chimeras: The Role of Nature as a Representation of Chavín Cosmology.” The paper and capstone research it represents explore the meaning, origin, and role of animal and natural iconography or images in Chavín culture, focusing on its greater cosmological and spiritual importance as depicted through the pre-Columbia culture’s artwork.
Influenced by the work of art historian David Summers, Stockton-Juarez abandoned the analytical lens of Western art history and analyzed the images in Chavín artwork using a different framework, a different set of vocabulary and novel perspectives. Ultimately her paper offers a new dialectical framework for critically evaluating the art of the Chavín, since art historians have found that Western art historical analysis lacks the experience and context to accurately analyze this artwork.
“Cris’ paper is the best I’ve supervised — it’s well researched and well written,” says Art History professor Gretchen McKay, who nominated the paper for the Ridington award. “The paper is truly a product of Cris’ Liberal Arts training because she found a way to take her love of environmental studies, art history and archeology to make a reasoned argument so that people can better understand the Chavín culture.”
For her senior capstone project and paper in Environmental Studies, Stockton-Juarez conducted researched with Environmental Studies professor Jason Scullion to evaluate the potential protective effect of archeological ruins in preventing deforestation inside conservation areas in Guatemala.
On Stockton-Juarez’s recent Jan Term study tour for the inaugural Forest Online class, she traveled deep into Peru’s remote Madre de Dios region to gather materials for the stories her forest protection group would use to inspire people to save the Amazon’s rainforests. As with many of her classmates, the course and Amazon adventure would help set her career compass.
Earning departmental honors in Environmental Studies and election to Phi Beta Kappa national honor society, Stockton-Juarez will channel her interest in art history and the environment into her pursuit of a master’s degree in Archeology at Cornell University. Her professors applaud her passion for social and environmental justice and view her choice of archeology as a natural extension of the combination of art history and environmental studies.
“Cris is a doer and a doer with purpose,” says Scullion, explaining that Stockton-Juarez recently marched in D.C. for climate change as well as women’s issues. “It’s natural — the study of ancient cultures informs the future and helps us find environmental solutions.”
And archeology, says McKay, uses environmental science and scientific methods to study ancient cultures.
