Students Recognized at National Convention

Seeking Freedom: Sigma Tau Delta Convention 2018

This year’s Sigma Tau Delta Convention took place in Cincinnati, Ohio in the beautiful Hilton Netherland Plaza in Downtown Cincinnati. This year’s convention theme is “Seeking Freedom” as explained by the official convention website, “As Sigma Tau Deltans, we know that language is a powerful tool of liberation. Words can change the real state of a human being, can remake a person from a slave to a citizen.”

Each year, every member of the Blue Mountain chapter of Sigma Tau Delta is required to submit one work to the convention. Hundreds of students and their sponsors attended the conference from March 22 to the 24 where participants presented their selected papers and collections of poetry in the forms of small panels. Each session included a time for reading and a time for Q&A from the audience.

Three students of Blue Mountain College were selected to attend along with their sponsor Professor Sherrell Settlemires. Sarah Roberson presented her short story “Dear Memories,” Myra Gilmore presented her formal essay “I Made This Up: Psychological Trauma in The Handmaid’s Tale,” and Caroline McClure presented her creative nonfiction piece “Professional Dreamer.”

Not only were there student and alumni presenters, but the two keynote speakers of the event, Cristina Henriquez and Mary Norris, discussed the ways that individuals can “Seek Freedom” through the pursuit of higher education in the field of English. Cristina Henriquez’s book The Book of Unknown Americans was selected as the Common Reader for this year’s convention.

On the final night of the convention, a banquet was held in which awards are given for each section of entries. In the Short Story section, Sarah Roberson received the first place award and was given a prize of six hundred dollars for her story “Dear Memories” about an elderly Southern woman dealing with dementia. This is the first time that a student from Blue Mountain College has placed at the international convention, and we are certainly very proud of her.