King's well-represented on Regional Winners list at Undergraduate Awards

King’s extends congratulations to Domonic McDonald and Wyatt Merkley, ’17, for being named as Regional Winners in the prestigious 2018 Undergraduate Awards based in Ireland.

McDonald and Merkley were among 14 Regional winners in the U.S. and Canada region.

McDonald was recognized in the category of Politics and International Relations for his essay titled Media, Islam and Populism in the Fifth Republic.  He is in a fourth year BA Honors student (King’s Scholar), Honors Specialization in Political Science, with a minor in Economics, and in the Western Thought and Civilization Program. McDonald is an International student at King’s from Bahamas. A well-rounded student, he is also involved in myriad of student leadership activities, including being a King’s University Student Council representative on the Western University Student Senate this year.

Merkley graduated with a BA Honors Specialization in English Language and Literature. He is highly commended for two papers in the literature category, titled Embroidery of Things - Objective Imagism in the Poetry of Al Purdy and The Green World and The Red in Shakespearean Literature. Merkley was also highly commended in 2016. 

There are currently seven Undergraduate Award (UA) regions: Africa & Middle East, Asia, Europe, Island of Ireland, Latin America, Oceania, US & Canada. A Regional Winner is the highest-performing Highly Commended Entrant from a UA region in their category.

In addition, Floranda Agroam, ’18, and Chloee Godin-Jacques, fifth year student, Honors Specialization in Social Justice and Peace Studies, had their research recognized as Highly Recommended.

Agroam graduated with a BA 4 Year Honors in Social Justice and Peace Studies Major/Political Science Major in June 2018. Her research paper, The Forgotten Majority, was named Highly Commended in the category of Politics and International Relations.

Godin-Jacques is a fifth year student, Honors Specialization in Social Justice and Peace Studies. She was recognized for her paper, Universalism Contested: The Exclusivity of a Universal Basic Income, in the category of Social Sciences: Sociology & Social Policy.

In all of Western University, including the affiliates, there were 23 students who had their papers ranked as Highly Commended, with four of the 23 being from King’s.

The Highly Commended recognizes the top 10% of research essays submitted to the contest from students around the world.   They are invited to attend the Global Undergraduate Summit in Dublin, Ireland this November and they are given access to the UA Alumni Portal, a private online directory of all UA winners and Highly Commended entrants since 2009.

Agroam, Merkly, McDonald, and Godin-Jacques were recognized by King’s faculty during the September Faculty Council meeting, as well as by the wider King’s community at the September College Council.  King’s will provide them with an honorarium towards the cost of their travel to Ireland.

Congratulations to these exemplary student-researchers! 

The Undergraduate Awards is a global competition that recognizes the world’s brightest undergraduate students through an anonymous international evaluation of their coursework. In 2018, the program received 4,887 submissions from 333 universities in 46 countries around the world.

For a complete list of winners, visit the Undergraduate Awards website.