ISI recognizes its most exceptional undergraduate and graduate student members with the Richard and Helen DeVos Freedom Center Leadership Award. The hard work of these individuals on their campuses and in their communities has inspired others to learn more about the economic, political, and spiritual underpinnings of American freedom. In so doing, their efforts have greatly multiplied ISI’s mission. ISI honors them for service to the institute, the ideas for which it stands, and the principles of freedom that serve as the foundation of our country.

Karin Agnes - University of Virginia

An Indiana native, Karin graduated in May 2006 with a B.A. in American studies from the University of Virginia. She is now in her second year of law school at UVA. In 2004, Karin founded the Network of enlightened Women (NeW), a book club aiming to cultivate a community of conservative women and expand intellectual diversity on university campuses. NeW members meet regularly to discuss issues relating to politics, gender, and conservative principles. Karin has worked to expand NeW to fifteen universities throughout the country. She is a former ISI Honors Fellow and currently is a columnist for the Virginia Advocate, a Collegiate Network paper, and Townhall.com. She has appeared on the Laura Ingraham Radio Show, the Bruce Elliot Show, and C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.

Philip Alito - University of Virginia

Phil is a senior at the University of Virginia, where he is part of the distinguished majors program for politics. As a sophomore, he helped restart the Virginia Advocate, a monthly conservative magazine that is part of ISI’s Collegiate Network. He served as executive editor during the 2006–7 academic year and was editor in chief this past year. The magazine focuses primarily on campus news, but covers important national and international events as well. Next year, Phil will be working as a research assistant in the foreign policy and defense studies department at the American Enterprise Institute.

Michael Hirshman - University of California–San Diego

Michael is a senior at the University of California–San Diego. As a sophomore, he started a weekly ISI discussion group and a newspaper, the Triton, at UCSD. The discussion group has grown into a widely regarded staple at the university, with speakers including a former official at Radio Free Europe, a leading biomedical ethicist, the editor of Liberty magazine, and numerous UCSD faculty. The newspaper has grown to a circulation of 2,500, covering topics such as campus religious life, free speech, and the tension between research and teaching. Michael is a 2007–8 ISI Honors Fellow, and he attended the Collegiate Network’s Geo-Strategic Journalism Course in Prague last summer.

Lorraine Krall - Georgetown University

Originally from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Lorraine is a doctoral candidate in political theory at Georgetown University. A 2005 graduate of Grove City College with a degree in English and political science, she became involved with ISI as an Honors Fellow in 2004, where one of her best memories was punting down the Thames to a conversation about world views and religion. She plans to write her dissertation on the question of what to do when a tradition decays. Upon completing her studies, she hopes to teach at the university level. Lorraine enjoys tennis, poetry, and typewriters.

Christopher B. Lacaria - Harvard University

A native of Waterbury, Connecticut, Chris is a junior at Harvard studying medieval and early modern European history. He is an editor of the Harvard Crimson, the campus daily newspaper, in which he writes a biweekly column. He also has been long involved with the Harvard Salient, an opinion journal associated with the Collegiate Network, currently serving as its editor in chief. In addition, Chris is an assistant editor of the Harvard Ichthus, a campus journal of Christian thought, and an active member in the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus. An ISI Honors Fellow in 2006–7, Chris has been especially interested in making, through his writing, a case for thoughtful and reasonable conservatism on campus and beyond.

Farahn Morgan - Wake Forest University

A junior studying philosophy at Wake Forest University, Farahn has been a member of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute since 2004. She is the politics editor and a culture contributor for the Old Guard, a new publication serving Wake Forest as an outlet for conservative thought and dialogue. Farahn has completed internships with Congressman Bobby Jindal and Congresswoman Virginia Foxx. She hopes to obtain a degree in constitutional law before beginning a career in politics. She is a member of the Wake Forest dance team and the Wake Forest dance company.

Daniel Slate - Stanford University

Daniel is currently a third year student of philosophy at Stanford University and the University of Oxford. An Eagle Scout and an ISI Honors Fellow in 2007–8, he has an abiding interest in and love for Western civilization and is convinced its traditions will live on so long as we continue to take an active part in the great conversation of Western thought. He joined the staff of the Stanford Review at the beginning of his freshman year and was editor in chief of the paper in 2007. As editor, he returned the paper to its founding professional and philosophical roots and encouraged students to learn more about ISI. At his urging, many of his friends applied for this year’s Honors Program. He intends to pursue graduate studies in the history of Western philosophy.

ISI recognizes its most exceptional faculty members with the Richard and Helen DeVos Freedom Center Leadership Award. The hard work of these individuals on their campuses and in their communities has inspired others to learn more about the economic, political, and spiritual underpinnings of American freedom. In so doing, their efforts have greatly multiplied ISI’s mission. ISI honors them for service to the institute, the ideas for which it stands, and the principles of freedom that serve as the foundation of our country.

Gary L. Gregg II - University of Louisville

Dr. Gregg holds the Mitch McConnell Chair in Leadership at the University of Louisville, where he is also director of the McConnell Center. He has an undergraduate degree in political science and history from Davis and Elkins College and has done graduate work at the University of Notre Dame and Miami University (Ohio), from which he has a doctoral degree in political science. He has served as national director of ISI and on boards for the United States Air Force, the Philadelphia Society, and the University Bookman. While at ISI, he helped build the prestigious Honors Program and served as a mentor to scores of undergraduates. He is the author or editor of half a dozen books, including The Presidential Republic and Securing Democracy: Why We Have an Electoral College. His new series of novels, similar to the works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, is called The Remnant Chronicles, with the first installment, The Sporran, published in the fall of 2007.

Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. - Georgetown University

Fr. Schall is a professor in the department of government at Georgetown University. He is the author of numerous ISI articles and books, including A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs, and The Life of the Mind. He speaks for the ISI lecture program and has coordinated events with other ISI faculty associates in Washington, D.C., for more than thirty years. He has authored several additional books, including Reason, Revelation, and the Foundations of Political Philosophy and Jacques Maritain: The Philosopher in Society. He also writes two columns, one in Crisis magazine and one in Gilbert!

E. Christian Kopff - University of Colorado–Boulder

Dr. Kopff is a graduate of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, where he earned his bachelor of arts degree, and the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, where he earned his Ph.D. in classics. He has taught at the University of Colorado–Boulder since 1973. There, he has served as the associate director of the Honors Program since 1990 and the director of the Center for Western Civilization since 2004. He is editor of a critical edition of the Greek text of Euripides’ Bacchae and author of over 100 articles and reviews on scholarly, pedagogical, and popular topics. He is also the author of The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition, published by ISI Books. A respected and popular mainstay in ISI’s Honors Program, he is often the most engaging and probing questioner, stirring and challenging the minds of the students. He currently is working with the classics department of the University of Urbino, Italy, on the manuscripts of ancient Greek lyric poetry. He is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the CU Committee on Research. He and his wife, Carmen, who teaches French at CU, have two sons.

Each year, ISI recognizes a select number of campus representatives who have displayed excep­tional dedication to bringing ISI programs and publications to their campuses and to sharing the ISI mission with others. Named after long-time ISI trustee Preston “Dick” Wells, this award captures the entrepreneurial spirit—as well as the intellectual and patriotic clarity—that defined Dick Wells and continue to define the influence of ISI on American college campuses.

Jordan Greene - Tufts University

Originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, Jordan attends Tufts University, where he has been a leader in the campus conservative movement since his arrival in 2004. He has been an active member of the Republican club and an occasional writer for his campus’s conservative magazine. He became president of the Republican club his junior year, during which time he organized several well-attended lectures and events, including an ISI conference on the topic “America and the Idea of Ordered Liberty.” Early in his senior year, Jordan organized an ISI reading group at Tufts, propitiously choosing God and Man at Yale as the club’s first selection. As he finishes his degree, most of his free time is spent completing an honors thesis on the U.S.-Chinese missile competition. Next fall, he will head to Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service to pursue a master’s degree in security studies.

Emily Jennings - University of Tulsa

Emily is a junior double major in philosophy and classics at the University of Tulsa. A recipient of the National Merit Scholarship, she was a 2007–8 Honors Fellow. Upon returning to school after the Honors retreat last summer, she founded an ISI campus group and helped start the conservative newspaper, SixThirtyOne. She plans to earn a Ph.D. and looks forward to defending conservative principles in academia. Her scholarly interests include Greco-Roman influences on contemporary society and the intersection between literature and philosophy. A violinist since age five, she enjoys performing solo and in local orchestras whenever her schedule permits.

Eric Wind - Georgetown University

Originally from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Eric is majoring in interna­tional politics with a subfield of foreign policy and policy processes in Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is also pursuing a certificate in Islam and Muslim-Christian under­standing with a focus on Iran. He is studying Persian (Farsi) and has studied Spanish for seven years as well as Japanese for one year. Eric is very passionate about ISI. He is a 2007–8 ISI Honors Fellow and in 2007, he founded and became editor in chief of Utraque Unum, a journal of the Georgetown University Tocqueville Forum that is affili­ated with the Collegiate Network. Eric is very involved at Georgetown and has held a variety of internships in Washington, D.C.

The health of an organization is gauged, in large part, by the strength of its alumni and their ongoing dedication to its mission. The M. Stanton Evans Alumni Award recognizes ISI students who continue to promote and support the institute and its programs even after they graduate from college. Through his early work with ISI in the ’50s and ’60s—and through subsequent years as an essayist, author, lecturer, and ISI board member—M. Stanton Evans sets a standard of service that few others follow. This award is bestowed on those honored few.

Brian Hooper - Washington and Lee University

Brian serves as advisor for weapons of mass destruction terrorism at the U.S. Department of State. He earned his B.A. from Washington and Lee University, his M.Phil. from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Federalist Society, deputy editor in chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and recipient of the dean’s award for community leadership. He has served as a law clerk for the Honorable David B. Sentelle in the court of appeals for the D.C. circuit and as an aide to Martin Lee, chair of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong. He is a member of the Philadelphia Society and the ISI Young Alumni Association, and he is actively involved with several professional and charitable organizations.

Graham Plaster - U.S. Naval Academy

Lieutenant Plaster is the assistant dean of students at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He is the first point of contact for all student concerns, and he has been working to bring ISI lecturers to the college. He was an ISI Honors Fellow while a midshipman at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, where he majored in English. He gradu­ated in 2002 and served with distinction as the antisubmarine warfare officer aboard the guided missile frigate USS Reuben James during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Within the past year, Graham has been nominated by navy placement for special assignments to the Middle East on five separate occasions, although his duties at the Naval War College have prevented him from going.

Peter Redpath - University of Dallas

Peter is the student division director of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, managing a nationwide network of over 200 law student division chapters. He received his law degree from Baylor University School of Law in 2000. He received his M.A. from St. John’s University School of Government and Politics in 1997 and his B.A. in English literature from the University of Dallas in 1995. He is a member of the Washington, D.C., bar and the U.S. Supreme Court bar. Peter was recently listed as one of the top ten young conservative activists in the nation by Human Events and sits on the board of visitors at the Fund for American Studies’ Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems.

ISI’s Culture of Enterprise initiative, funded by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foun­dation, annually sponsors an international student essay contest on the topic “Can Character and Communities Survive in an Age of Globalization?” The contest is designed to encourage students to reflect on the relationship between free enterprise and the institutions and mores that define a particular culture.

James Tillman - Christendom College • 1st Place • $10,000

Globalization and Community: A Conflict of the Good
James was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the second oldest of six children. After moving to a sheep farm in Lost Creek, West Virginia, he was home schooled through high school using Kolbe Academy curriculum—an education based in the classics of Western civilization—in addition to taking computer, law, and language classes at the local high school. Before entering Christendom College, he interned at ProLogic and ManTech, two local software and technology development companies. Last summer, he interned at the Heritage Foundation. He participated in Christendom College’s semester abroad program this past fall, living in Rome and visiting various locations around Europe. He is majoring in philosophy with a math minor. He is an active member of the Chester Belloc debate society; contributes to the Rambler, Christendom’s CN-sponsored student newspaper; is a peer writing tutor; and enjoys playing handball.

Aaron Kreuter - University of Minnesota • 2nd Place • $5,000

The Cultural Cost of Globalization: Observations on Business School, Free Lunch, and Moral Relativism
Born and raised in Chanhassen, Minnesota, Aaron is the youngest in a family of four boys. He attended private Christian schools through high school and will graduate this spring from the University of Min­nesota, where he currently studies entrepreneurship and economics. He plans to attend the University of Minnesota Law School beginning this fall. In his free time, he enjoys reading, running, hiking, camping, and anything connected with the sport of soccer.

John Jalsevac - Christendom College • 3rd Place • $2,000

Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Globalization
John is a lifelong native of Toronto and the fourth child in a family of eight. This past December, he completed his studies in philosophy, with a minor in theology, at Christendom College. John was highly involved in the dramatic arts, taking the lead in several plays and direct­ing many others. He also served as the editor in chief of Christendom’s CN-sponsored newspaper, the Rambler, as well as the college’s literary journal. Currently he is working as the assistant editor of the online pro-life, pro-family news publication LifeSiteNews.com. He intends to earn a doctorate in clinical psychology and hopes in the future to both practice psychology and teach at the college level.

Garreth Bloor - University of Cape Town • 4th Place • $1,500

Markets, Morality, and the Challenges of Globalization
Garreth is a third year student at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is majoring in political studies, philosophy, and media. He currently serves as vice president of the democratically elected Students Representative Council, serving a constituency of over 20,000 students across UCT’s five campuses as part of the fifteen-member committee. He attended the Global Young Leaders Conference in high school and was named a Gailliot Fellow after participating in Acton University as a freshman in 2006. Garreth has completed internships at the national parliament of the Republic of South Africa and the Institute for U.S. Law in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Democratic Alli­ance—the country’s official classical liberal, free-market opposition party—and currently is enrolled in their young leaders program. He formerly held a post as deputy news editor at the UCT Varsity paper and has served as a writing consultant to British Sky Broadcasting. He is currently the southern and east Africa correspondent for Total Politics, a new British publication, and he also writes as a freelance journalist for the Financial Mail Campus. In 2007, he was a nominee for the UCT most outstanding student leader in journalism award. He also is founder and chair of the Enterprise Forum, established this year to promote entrepreneurship through business support and education.

Jeremy Mann - Biola University • 5th Place • $1,000

An Apology for the City: Place in the Global Era
Jeremy spent the first six years of his life in China, where his parents taught English. He is currently a senior at Biola University in Califor­nia, majoring in philosophy and studying the great books in the Torrey Honors Institute. Jeremy has presented papers on the problem of moral luck, Plato’s Republic, and supererogation at undergraduate and gradu­ate philosophy conferences. While at Biola, he has been president of the Association of Student Philosophers, a resident assistant, and—through a position in student government—the host of speakers, debates, and conferences on campus. He spent the spring semester of his junior year studying at Oxford and rock-climbing in various parts of the UK. Next year he hopes to teach at a low-income urban public school with Teach for America; after that Jeremy would like to pursue graduate study in ancient and analytic philosophy with the aim of learning, teaching, and championing the sorts of universities John Henry Newman describes.

For more on ISI’s Culture of Enterprise project, please click here.

ISI established the William E. Simon Fellowship for Noble Purpose to recognize graduating college seniors who are pursuing lives dedicated to and distinguished by honor, generosity, ser­vice, and respect. The fellowships, funded by the John Templeton Foundation*, are unrestricted cash grants awarded to graduating college seniors who have demonstrated passion, dedication, a high capacity for self-direction, and originality in pursuit of a goal that will strengthen civil society.

Bryan Mauk - John Carroll University • $40,000 Fellowship

Bryan serves the homeless on the streets of his hometown of Cleve­land by building relationships with them. For four years, he has been leading an outreach ministry that he cofounded to visit the homeless where they live: under bridges, in alleyways, and on park benches. This ministry focuses not on the food and blankets they bring, but on friendship—and forming powerful, motivating relationships with the homeless. Bryan hopes to build a nonprofit organization with a house where homeless individuals can find not only shelter, but the physical, mental, and social support they need to end poverty in their lives. His nonprofit will use abandoned and foreclosed houses to help the homeless, repairing the condemned buildings and providing job training opportunities in the process. Once repaired, the homes will serve as affordable housing and help revive an impoverished city. To prepare himself for these efforts, he plans to enroll in graduate school this fall and pursue a master’s degree in nonprofit administration.

Emily Byers - Louisiana State University • $5,000 Fellowship

A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Emily will graduate from Louisiana State University this year with a bachelor of arts degree in English and Spanish. She intends to spend the next two years volunteering as an extended-term missionary with the Missioners of Christ in Comayagua, Honduras. During her time of missionary service, Emily will help to organize a small library for the local community: the Biblioteca Project. The library will serve as a quiet study space for students of all ages and will provide valuable resources for the existing tutoring, literacy, and scholarship programs run by the Missioners in cooperation with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. Many children in Honduras drop out of school after the third grade, and those who stay in school often struggle a great deal academically. Emily firmly believes that encourag­ing children to read cultivates their desire to learn and helps to reverse these negative trends. She hopes that the Biblioteca Project will foster creativity, integrity, and enthusiasm in the students of Comayagua.

Megan McGinnity - Arizona State University • $5,000 Fellowship

Volunteering in Romanian orphanages inspired Megan to investigate international trafficking in persons. A recipient of the Truman Scholar­ship and Circumnavigator’s Scholarship, she traveled around the world researching the economics of human trafficking and completed her thesis on the subject. Having spent several months in Egypt, she saw a great need to aid women and children who are trafficked through (and within) Egypt for commercial sexual exploitation. With the William E. Simon Fellowship, she will bring together local resources to expand her research. She plans to equip local stakeholders with the informa­tion and analysis needed to establish holistic restoration programs for society’s most vulnerable. A native of Mesa, Arizona, Megan will graduate summa cum laude from Arizona State University with degrees in economics and political science. Beginning this fall, she will under­take a master of science degree in Middle East politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

For more on the William E. Simon Fellowship for Noble Purpose, please click here.

*The John Templeton Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life’s biggest questions—from explora­tions into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity. Through ISI’s William E. Simon Fellowship, the Templeton Foundation encourages a fresh appre­ciation of the importance of the moral and spiritual dimensions of life for all peoples and cultures. With ISI’s Culture of Enterprise initiative, the foundation identifies and publicizes the very best that has been written on economics and culture by young scholars worldwide in order to advance the cause of ordered liberty throughout the globe.