Messenger - Vol. 3, No. 4, Page 25
Summer 1994
Outstanding seniors recognized

     The 1994 awards to outstanding male and female seniors were
presented to Joseph D. Thompson Jr. of Kinsale, Va., and Jennifer A.
Johnson of Newark, Del., both graduates of the College of Arts and
Science.
     The Emalea Pusey Warner and Alexander J. Taylor Sr. Awards for
Outstanding Seniors are presented annually to a graduating woman and
man who have demonstrated outstanding qualities of leadership,
citizenship and character.
     Recipients were presented a $500 U.S. Savings Bond on Honors Day,
and they led the alumni delegates' procession at the 1994
Commencement. Additionally, their names are inscribed on plaques near
the Alumni Room in the Perkins Student Center and in Alumni Hall.
     Johnson, who will attend the University of Tulsa, was an English
and women's studies major with a 4.0 grade point average. A member of
Phi Beta Kappa, she won the Academic Incentive Award, Honors Program
Scholarship, Delaware Student Scholarship, Writing Fellowship, General
Honors Certificate, Arts and Humanities Summer Scholar and Phi Kappa
Phi Honors Degree award. She served as vice president of the English
honor society, Sigma Tau Delta, and as a member of Omicron Delta
Kappa, a service-oriented fraternity, and Mortar Board honor society
for seniors. She is also an active member of the Phi Sigma Pi
fraternity, a coed honor society.
     Thompson, an English, black American studies and history major
with a 3.9 grade point average, will attend Yale University's graduate
school, where he plans to earn his doctorate in African American
Studies and English. Thompson spent the summer as a resident assistant
for the UD Summer Enrichment Program, which he has done for the past
two summers.
     He has received the Compton Fellowship from Yale, a $12,000
annual award. Among his honors are Sigma Tau Delta English honor
society; Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi; Black Alumni Book Award;
Black Student Union Academic Achievement Award for highest GPA in
1991, 1992, 1993; African-American Student of Promise; and Phi Sigma
Pi honor fraternity. A member of the University Chorale and gospel
choir pianist, he served as a Blue Hen Host.