Michael Bogucki and Julia Kohen

2:20 p.m., May 9, 2003--Julia Kohen of Bayside, N.Y., and Michael Bogucki of Wilmington will receive the University of Delaware Alumni Association's Emalea Pusey Warner and Alexander J. Taylor Sr. Awards for 2003. Given annually, the awards honor an outstanding woman and man, respectively, of the senior class.

Those considered for the $2,000 awards must have demonstrated leadership, academic success and community service as exemplified by Mrs. Warner and Mr. Taylor. Applicants also must have a cumulative grade point index of 3.0 or better at the end of the first semester of their senior year. The awards are presented each year at a luncheon with UD President and Mrs. David P. Roselle, held on Honors Day. The recipients also lead the alumni delegates procession at Commencement.

Julia Kohen
At UD, Kohen simultaneously pursued bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She will graduate this month with an honors bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in biology and a master’s degree in history. She completed the work for both degrees in four years, made the Dean’s List every semester and maintained a 3.71 graduate grade-point average and a 3.79 undergraduate grade-point average.

Along with her academics, Kohen has a strong record of service to the University and is largely responsible for the revitalization of the Du Pont Scholars Program. Under her leadership, Du Pont Scholars have banded together to form a supportive academic community on campus and have developed a lecture series with speakers of national renown.

Kohen was responsible for finding close to $40,000 in funding for the series and was able to bring speakers such as Ralph Nader and Pulitzer Prize winners Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times and poet Stephen Dunn to campus. Under her direction, the Du Pont Scholars also have coordinated an annual symposium that brings student scholars from three other campuses to UD for a weekend each fall.

Also at UD, Kohen has served as a Freshman Fellow, a position that encourages freshmen honors students to plan activities in their residence halls. In her sophomore and junior years, she was a Russell Fellow and worked with Honors Program staff to redesign that program. Russell Fellows are upperclass students who live in honors freshmen housing, serve as mentors for incoming students and plan social, cultural and educational programs to help instill a greater sense of community in the residence halls. They also represent the Honors Program at special events.

During her senior year, Kohen continued to serve the program as a Senior Fellow planning programs for students living in upperclass honors housing.

In the Department of Political Science, Kohen caught the attention of many faculty members as an Alison Scholar. She has traveled on two department trips to Italy and London, has served as an undergraduate teaching assistant and with James Magee, professor and acting chairperson, and completed a research project on the lives of four 19th- century figures who substantially shaped the evolving meaning of freedom of speech in the U.S.

She also served as a research assistant for Joseph A. Pika, professor of political science,who, in a letter of recommendation compares her to Len Stark, a UD Rhodes Scholar, and calls her “one of those unusual students who not only has excelled academically but will graduate having improved the institution through her personal efforts.”

She also has served as a Blue Hen Ambassador, assisting with special recruitment efforts in the UD admissions office.

Kohen received the prestigious James R. Soles Jr. Fellowship at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., and will begin working there after graduation. At the conclusion of the fellowship, she plans to attend law school.

The Emalea Pusey Warner Award honors the late Mrs. Warner (1853-1948) who is best remembered on the UD campus as a champion of education. In 1911, she became chairperson of the State Federation of Women's Clubs' Committee on Education and worked diligently toward the specific goal of establishing a state-supported women's college. She later became the first woman member of the Delaware College Board of Trustees. Both Warner Hall on the University campus and Warner Elementary School in Wilmington are named in her honor.

Michael Bogucki
A regional finalist in the Rhodes Scholarship competition, Bogucki will graduate with an honors bachelor of arts degree in both English and history. He maintained a grade point average of 3.88 in English and 3.85 in history, and is one of 63 students in a graduating class of 4,300 to earn an honors degree with distinction.

He is known on campus as the UD student who took on television talk show host Chris Matthews in the “Hardball Hot Seat” when the program aired from UD in January. He remains tied for 12th place as the contest continues.

Bogucki chose his joint major because of his interest in studying plays as history and as literary works. The working topic for his honors thesis is “Passio: Performance Values in Medieval Passion Plays, 1150-1634.”

While maintaining his rigorous academic schedule, Bogucki was actively involved in E-52 Student Theatre. He has had 25 different roles in 20 productions and spent time working backstage, directing, designing sets or running lights when he wasn’t performing. Additionally, he was instrumental in arranging for the group to perform in the oncology ward of the A.I. du Pont Children’s Hospital and in arranging other benefit performances for the facility.

The success of that project led him to form The Circle Players, a new campus drama group, committed to staging dramatic productions to publicize and raise money for local charities.

Bogucki also is a founder and the managing editor of a new campus literary magazine, “Deconstruction.”

Additionally, while pursuing his studies, Bogucki joined UD’s Emergency Care Unit and took night classes to become an emergency medical technician.

In his Rhodes Scholarship application essay he wrote, “I…came to enjoy grabbing a large coffee and stethoscope to work the midnight-to-six shift. That’s the time when people with the worst problems need the quickest help. Interestingly enough, classes and grades became much easier to handle after a night of splinting broken arms, staunching blood and praying I wouldn’t have to use the defibrillator on an infant.”

Bogucki entered UD as part of the medical scholars program, planning to become a medical doctor, but through his work as a writing fellow in the Honors Program, was drawn to teaching. In the program, he worked extensively as a writing tutor and served as the senior writing fellow, supervising other writing fellows.

In his Rhodes essay he explained, “Working as a writing fellow…finally fused my loves for service and studies together. One-on-one, I tutored students ranging in skill levels from freshman English students to graduate biochemistry majors and differing life experiences from a working Russian immigrant mother of four to a Chinese graduate student for whom English was a sticky sixth language.”

Through the Writing Fellows Program, Bogucki found opportunities to present papers at writing conferences in Maryland, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Bogucki has won many awards and honors, including the William E. Meakins Award, third place in the Rainbow Records Playwriting Competition, a study abroad merit scholarship, an arts and humanities scholarship, the William P. Nields Scholarship Award, a supplies and expense grant from the UD Undergraduate Research Office, an Honors Program Merit Award, a UD scholar award and a first-year honors certificate. Additionally, he was a National Merit Scholar and is a member of Alpha Lambda Delta, the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and Phi Kappa Phi.

In a letter of recommendation Louis Hirsch, deputy director of admissions, wrote, “I have known other exceptionally bright students who have also been student leaders or started literary magazines or tutored writing or acted in plays or gone out on ambulance calls as EMTs, but Mike is the first I’ve known who had done all of these things.”

The Alexander J. Taylor Sr. Award honors the late Mr. Taylor (1875-1940) who entered Delaware College in 1889 and was one of 13 who graduated four years later. Class valedvictorian, with a baccalaureate degree in civil engineering, Mr. Taylor was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1927, re-elected in 1932 and again in 1938. Taylor Gymnasium is named in his honor.

Article by Beth Thomas
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson