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EKU Student Wins Prestigious National Award for Top Honors Thesis Project

Kyle Smith

EKU student Kyle Smith is one of four students nationwide to receive this year’s prestigious Portz Scholar Award from the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). Each year, the award goes to the top four undergraduate research projects in the nation at NCHC member institutions. Smith won the award for his honors thesis, in which he wrote and illustrated a historical novel. Along with the other three winners, Smith presented his honors thesis and received the Portz Scholar Award on Nov. 1, 2024, at the annual NCHC conference in Kansas City.

Smith recently graduated from the EKU Honors Program as an Honors Scholar with a major in English. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing through EKU’s Bluegrass Writers Studio and is a graduate consultant for the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity.

“To me, my honors thesis represents the culmination of all areas of my undergraduate studies,” said Smith. “Each piece of my college journey—my English major, history minor and honors program coursework—helped guide me in creating an interdisciplinary project I am proud of.”

His faculty mentor for the project, EKU Professor of History Dr. Catherine Stearn, said, “It was a true joy to work with Kyle on his project. He used his intellectual and creative gifts to blend rigorous historical research with thoughtfully creative narrative threads to craft his story. He was also incredibly organized and proactive; it was wonderful to watch his story and his confidence to construct realistic historical fiction bloom.”

EKU Professor of English and Chair of the EKU English Department Dr. Charlotte Rich also worked closely with Smith. 

“Kyle first became interested in the process of creating graphic fiction in my course on graphic novels,” said Rich. “For a term project, he chose to adapt Ernest Hemingway’s story ‘Hills Like White Elephants’ into graphic novel format, with superb results. It was no surprise that Kyle pursued this interest, combined with thorough historical research, to create ‘Boleyn Ballads’ as a unique, national award-winning honors thesis.”

This is only the second time—and the first since 2014—that a student from the EKU Honors program has won this prestigious national award.

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