On Saturday, April 2 Texas Wesleyan’s History Program hosted the North Central Texas Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference. Sixty graduate and undergraduate students from 13 North Texas universities presented papers on a diverse array of historical topics in twenty sessions held across campus. Sixteen faculty from North Texas colleges and universities served as chairs and discussants for the paper sessions. Phi Alpha Theta conferences are meant to equip and prepare young scholars in the discipline by giving them the opportunity to present and discuss their work in the setting of a traditional history academic conference.

At the event’s lunch in the Louella Baker Martin Pavilion, attendees were welcomed to campus by both Brenda Matthews, Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Ricardo Rodriguez, Dean of the School of Natural and Social Sciences. After a short address by Phi Alpha Theta National Representative Jacob Blosser of Texas Woman’s University, the Honorable Judge Quentin McGown delivered a talk entitled “Texas Wesleyan University and the Building of Polytechnic Heights.”‌

The event ended with a short awards ceremony recognizing the conference’s best papers. The following students received awards.

Best Undergraduate Paper
Abigail Fransen, Abilene Christian University
“Churchill’s Secret Army: Women as SOW Operatives during World War II”

Runner Up: Best Undergraduate Paper
Victoria Stowe, Abilene Christian University
“Terrorism in a Skirt: A History of Irish Women Nationalists in Twentieth Century” 

Phi Alpha Theta Book Award: Undergraduate Paper
Sarah Caudill, Texas Wesleyan University
“Russia and the Thirst for Charismatic Leadership” 

Phi Alpha Theta Book Award: Undergraduate Paper
Molly Woodruff, Texas Wesleyan University
“Survival of a Modern City-State: Singapore’s National Identity”

Best Graduate Paper
Stephanie Sulik, University of Texas at Arlington
“Identifying Systems of White Supremacy: A Case Study of Firestone in Liberia”

Runner Up: Best Graduate Paper
Sherilyn Farnes, Texas Christian University
“The End of an Arrow: Martyrdom, Maps and Conflict in Kino’s Biography of Francisco Javier Saeta, S.J., 1695”

Phi Alpha Book Award: Graduate Paper
Scarlet Jernigan, Texas Christian University
“Sentiment as the Great Conservative Principle of Society: The Unitarian Rural Cemetery Movement and Its Adoption in Macon, Georgia”

Phi Alpha Theta Book Award; Graduate Paper
Nicole Newton, Texas A&M Commerce
“Beyond Barbed Wire: World War II Relocation and Nisei Resistance”

It was announced that next year’s North Central Texas Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference will be held at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches.

The conference at Texas Wesleyan was generously funded through the Pate endowment, which is named in honor of the late Fort Worth businessman and philanthropist A. M. Pate. “Aggie” Pate who was involved in many history-related activities including the founding of the Pate Museum of Transportation and the Fort Worth Civil War Round Table. He was committed to encouraging research and scholarship and endowed History programs at a number of institutions of higher learning including Texas Wesleyan University.