Negley Award Honors Best 333s

Seniors Nicky Don, Alice McCrum, Danna Shen and Peter Thompson have been selected from hundreds of 333 papers submitted last spring and 22 finalists to win the coveted Negley prize for the 2014-15 school year. The four wrote about topics ranging from the Secret War in Laos to The Young Ladies’ Academy of Philadelphia in the 1780s and 90s, as well as the stories of feminist Dr. Mary Edwards Walker and 1950s civil rights activist Paul Robeson.History instructor Clinton Williams, who joined the committee for his second time this year, said the group of papers was larger than usual, and displayed the talent of the writers. “I feel like we had a wide range of topics,” Williams said, “so it was a wide swathe of great, wonderful papers this year.”

Michael Golay, Negley Selection Committee member and history instructor, agreed with Williams. “We had some very good papers. The quality at entrance was high, and these just stood apart for originality and execution,” Golay said.Golay and Williams were also united in the idea that this year’s Negley winners were all able to tell a new story or bring a new outlook to a more familiar one. “I think the winners had in common that they were papers created from the whole cloth. In other words, they were original ideas and there wasn’t a whole lot of trail already blazed. I found that really appealing,” Golay said.“There were a lot of things we haven’t seen before this year in terms of historical research,” Williams said, “but there were also things we’ve seen but they took a new look at it, and that was fun to read. There were things that were really innovative, and originality was something that none of the the winning papers lacked.”The Negley winning papers will be published in the spring as a reference source for anyone in or outside the Exeter community, also providing current uppers with exemplary papers to guide them through the 333 process.On Monday, the winners received an email from history department chair Bill Jordan with “Check your PO” in the subject line, and an enigmatic “smile emoji,” according to Shen. In the post office were letters notifying each winner of the prize.Each winner seemed pleasantly surprised by the news, as none had made it their goal from the start. Don described her subject of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker as obscure, and one that she thought “wouldn’t typically win a Negley. I felt it was coincidental that I got a Negley,” Don said. She hadn’t believed that her topic or writing would catch the eye of the selection committee, but she’s “grateful that they chose it.”She encouraged any student writing a 333 paper to decide on a topic that was interesting and engaging for a long term project. “[It has to be something] you are willing to research in the middle of the night for six weeks, for fun.”Shen agreed, stressing the importance of genuine interest in the topic. “Regardless of whether you end up winning a Negley or not,” she said, “you cannot go into it thinking that you want to win a Negley, or that you won’t and it doesn’t matter. It should be that you found a topic you’re absolutely in love with.”The importance of interest in the topic is heightened due to the intensive nature of the writing process, Shen said. “If you get bored halfway through, then you won’t end up with a paper you like and the last three weeks of your writing will be kind of miserable.”Shen, who wrote about the Young Ladies’ Academy of Philadelphia, was intrigued by the subject in a general sense from the start of the 300 history series. “I was figuring out what it meant to be educated as a girl and what kinds of education they were getting,” she said. “I wrote about gender roles for all of my research papers throughout the year, and I wanted to write about the post-revolutionary period, where there was an enormous rise in education for girls.”Thompson was drawn to his topic through a personal connection and an urge to share the history of the Secret War with more people. “[The Secret War] happened in Laos during the Vietnam War, during which the CIA was sending in secret planes to bomb Laos and using natives to try and get communism out of the country,” he said. Thompson’s interest was piqued by the fact that his mother is a refugee from the Secret War.He acknowledged the difficulty he experienced during the writing process, describing it as “stressful,” but was encouraged by his friends, his teacher Ms. Luther-Hillman, and the impetus to share a story he felt was “important to be told and I wanted to tell it well.”“I think a Negley signifies passion,” he continued, “because if you’re passionate about what you’re writing about and you believe that the message you’re trying to send is one you want others to know about and remember, that will be reflected in your writing.”McCrum differed slightly, as she’d started the history 300 series with a goal of doing as well as she could, spurred on by her natural interest in history as a subject, but resisted aiming for a Negley. Her writing process was erratic, with her paper leaping from a 7-page draft to a 21-page final paper in four weeks. However, her interest started early and was maintained throughout the paper, a fact she characterized as important and helpful.“My paper was about Paul Robeson, a civil rights activist and entertainer in the 1950s who was very controversial when he lived, and when he died, there was a playwright who wrote a play synthesizing his life, and the play brought up issues that were never resolved during his lifetime,” McCrum said. “I found an obituary of the playwright, and it was really everything I’d been looking for. It was totally unprecedented in terms of 333 topics. There was conflict, a story to tell and really interesting characters.”Despite widely ranging topics and papers, the Negley Prize winners seemed united in their authentic sense of passion and interest in their respective topics. “I think the most important thing is finding a topic that you truly love. If you find a topic that you really connect with, you’re going to produce your best work that way,” McCrum added.