UWG News Archive

Allen awarded Phi Kappa Phi fellowship

April 21, 2003

CARROLLTON, GA - University of West Georgia anthropology student Keri Allen from Tallapoosa was awarded an $8,000 graduate fellowship from the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.

The Fellowship Program of the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi was established in 1932 and awards 52 annual fellowships for post-graduate study at an institution of higher learning. Allen is the third recipient of this award from UWG.

The criteria which Allen met to win the award included an outstanding undergraduate academic performance; leadership and service on the campus and in the community; evidence of graduate potential; a personal statement about her reasons for choosing to go to graduate school and what her graduate study plans were; and three letters of recommendation.

“This is a high honor for Keri and the University of West Georgia because other schools winning fellowships were Ohio State, Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M. This indicates that our students are competitive on a national level,” says Jan Ruskell, president of the local Phi Kappa Phi chapter, and library professor.
Founded in 1897, Phi Kappa Phi is the oldest and largest national honor society dedicated to the recognition and promotion of academic excellence in all fields of higher education. The Society has more than 1,000,000 members with more than 280 chapters located on college and University campuses across the United States, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

After Allen gradates from West Georgia this May, she plans to attend the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the PhD program in anthropology. She intends to focus on culture in the United States with an emphasis on the effects of globalization on rural communities.

“Keri is among our best and brightest anthropology majors and has many honors to her credit. She received a Waring Full Scholarship for the past two years, was the Big Night Social Science honoree last year, and has received other competitive scholarships and awards,” said Dr. Ray Crook, professor of sociology and anthropology. “We are very pleased that she was accepted into one of the best graduate anthropology programs in the nation, and the anthropology faculty is proud to be reflected upon so well by her achievements and hard work.”

Allen is a non-traditional student with three teen-aged children, and has received many scholarships while at UWG. Some of them include the Video Software Distributors Association Scholarship, Talbot’s Women’s Scholarship, Davenport-Cadenhead Scholarship, Foundation Scholarship and the Henry Lumpkin Academic Scholarship.

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