USU student wins honors in an academic conference
Senior history major Leslie Hadfield was recently awarded Best Undergraduate Paper and $200 at the eighth annual Student Academic Conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The conference was sponsored by the Institute of African American Research (IAAR) in North Carolina.
According to www.unc.edu/depts/iaar, the IAAR’s mission is to “promote and advance scholarly investigation of the history, social experiences, culture and thought of people of African descent throughout the Diaspora with particular emphasis on Black Americans.
Hadfield’s paper is titled “Going Back to Africa: Reasons for Colonization After Emancipation,” and is written as a senior thesis.
Hadfield said much of her research included studying interviews of ex-slaves in the 1930s by the Works Progress Association (WPA), which she went to BYU to research. She said she enjoyed researching the primary documents the most.
“I really enjoyed being able to look at the actual interviews and interpret them myself,” Hadfield said. “It was really interesting.”
Hadfield said it was a day-long conference with a reception the day before. Her session was “Slavery and Emancipation” where she gave a 15-minute presentation. Professor comments and discussions were held at the end of the session.
“It was good to get feedback from other professors,” Hadfield said. “And it was interesting to see conversations that were going on with the Diaspora.”
Jennifer Ritterhouse, a professor of history who introduced Hadfield to the conference, thought her paper would be a good candidate.
“She wrote an outstanding paper,” Ritterhouse said. “Leslie put a lot of effort into it and worked hard to find sources.”
Hadfield said she would encourage others in the same field to go as well.
“It was a great place to share ideas and research and it gives students a place to display their work,” Hadfield said.