English Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta, Inducts 83 New Members

On April 21, Geneseo’s Iota Lambda chapter of the English Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta, inducted eighty-three new members. The half-hour ceremony highlighted accessibility and inclusivity, emphasizing that the honor society serves the entire English Department. Outgoing executive board president Nicole Callahan spoke to the chapter’s increased outreach efforts this year, including offering one-on-one connections to all new students in the department and significantly increasing our social media presence to help people feel connected and to get involved (see https://www.geneseo.edu/english/sigma-tau-delta).

Isabella Higgins discussed Sigma Tau Delta’s support for diversifying the Humanities curriculum, which included a petition recording student support for broadening and breaking from Geneseo’s menu of readings as well as a roundtable presentation at the annual convention where we shared local initiatives and solicited feedback from across the nation. More broadly, Sigma Tau Delta also endorses the Concerned Students Coalition’s List of Demands that would support BIPOC and traditionally underrepresented students on campus (https://speaks.geneseo.edu/?p=155). Beyond campus, our service project this year is to help The Arc of Livingston-Wyoming gather signatures of support for an inclusive community, as Jordyn Costello explained. People living with intellectual and developmental disabilities aare another group that has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic (https://tinyurl.com/yx79rr6z).

Professor Kristen Gentry spoke to this historical moment in a powerful, lyrical address, noting the induction as one of those small celebrations that, quoting Prince, help get us through this thing called Life. April 21 was the fifth anniversary of Prince’s death, a shocking loss that Professor Gentry connected to our traumatic past year of pandemic, racial tension, Black death at the hands of police, and mass shootings across the nation. Words, suggested Professor Gentry, are our solace and strength. Prince called life an “electric word,” and Professor Gentry added that “All words are electric. The words we write have the power to change lives. The way we interpret them has the power to change history. The words we speak have the power to manifest into reality. … Use electric words to make the world a better place than it was before you spoke, wrote, or read them.”

The induction closed with incoming president Georgia VanDerwater asking interested students to volunteer for next year’s e-board (contact Georgia at gv3@geneseo.edu) and with faculty sponsor Dr. Gillian Paku leading the pledge and remarking how the society has rallied in this difficult year around the STD motto: sincerity in our hopes for inclusivity and some necessary truth-speaking, alongside the craft and design of our creative and analytical work. We welcome the following students to the society and look forward to celebrating our chapter’s fiftieth anniversary in 2022:

2020

William Anderson

Jessica Apthorpe

Hannah Bentivegna

Claire Corbeaux

Jordyn Costello

Jenna Doolan

Kayleigh Eames

Kayla Eyler

Michaelena Ferraro

Daniel Fleischman

Melisha Gatlin

Aliyha Gill

Devin Gordon

Mackenzie Griffin

Valeria Guarneros

Jamie Henshaw

Walter Hoag

Sarah Holsberg

Hayley Jones

Kayla Kenny

Fatima Khanam

Anthony Lyon

Courtney Lyon

Emma Mandella

Emma Marino

Rachel McLauchlin

Kaitlyn McNulty

Rosalinda Mesbahi

Ben Michalak

Kyle Navratil

Richard Noel

Dong Won Oh

Kaitlyn Papaccio

Domenica Piccoli

Emma Raupp

Sophie Schapiro

Nickolas Schuessler

Emma Short

Hannah Sullivan

Emily Tsoi

Lyndsay Tudman

Georgia VanDerwater

Stephanie Wall

Rebecca Williamson

Emily Zandy

2021

Sarah Barber

Carly Burgio

Bridget Cain

Kathryn Capone

Elizabeth Costanzo

Caroline Crimmins

Hailey Cullen

Katelyn Daniels

Amina Diakite

Alison DiCesare

Susanna Dolan

Tess Duignan

Marin Goodstein

Kat Johnson

Zack Laird

Grace Lawrence

Macaire Lisicki

Cameron Luquer

Hannah Lustyik

Emma Meeks

Maeve Morley

Ethan Owens

Megan Palmer

Maria Papas

Maria Pawlak

Cassandra Pepe

Rebecca Perry

Samantha Phillips

Kevin Reed

Jose Romero

Elizabeth Roos

Olivia Root

Leila Sassouni

Isaac Schiller

Peter-Joseph Sharak

Lauren Silverman

Juliet Wenzel

Samuel Wright