Three students dedicated to creating a stronger community in the history and math departments have been honored this spring with the Franklin Miller Award.
Elizabeth Redmond ’25, Khue Tran ’25 and Mariah Szabo ’26 were recognized with the award — named for the late, longtime faculty member and distinguished physicist — for their significant contributions to the College’s academic environment.
Redmond, a history major who is minoring in art history and French, has dedicated herself to connecting her peers to the history department — and each other.
A founding member of the department’s student advisory board, she helped lead its transition into a club this year as the Kenyon History Society. The student group hosts trivia nights, movie screenings where faculty share their expertise, and a blog, which grew out of a departmental newsletter that Redmond edited, where students can share short essays about historical topics of interest to them.
For Redmond, who runs the department’s official Instagram account, it’s an important way to build community among history majors and the student body in general.
“I had already, at the end of my first year, established myself as an intense history nerd, and so part of it for me was about finding like-minded nerds with that same intensity,” she said. “But everybody can come. One friend went to a movie night and she told me, ‘This reignited my love of history.’ That’s really the core of what we’re doing.”
The Indianapolis native, who on Honors Day received the Curtis A. Seichter Award for excellence in the study of history, also has been active on campus as a member of the Kenyon Ballroom Dancing Club, a peer minister with the Community of the Holy Spirit, and a senior admissions fellow. She plans on continuing her studies in history in graduate school next year.
In nominating Redmond, Visiting Assistant Professor of History Garret McDonald said she has been a “singular driving force” for student engagement in the department.
“I don’t think I've ever worked with a student so dedicated to improving the liveliness and well-being of their home department like Elizabeth,” he wrote. “She engages both faculty and her peers in an effort to keep everyone involved and actively helping one another.”
Tran and Szabo have had a similar impact on students interested in mathematics.
The pair are co-presidents of the Kenyon chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), an organization that encourages female participation in the mathematical sciences. It hosts regular study sessions in Hayes Hall — Mondays from 8 to 10 p.m. — where all students are invited to help each other with homework.
“There are a lot of connotations with learning math that it’s a very solo thing, but when you come to study hall you realize that it’s a lot of fun to do it with people and think through problems together,” Tran said. “We really want to encourage everyone to be in that space and feel like everyone can work together.”
As two people who didn’t come to Kenyon expecting to be math majors, they treasure the opportunity to foster an inclusive culture and a supportive community for others who may be interested in a growing department.
“The community of math majors is one of the strongest social communities across departments at Kenyon,” Szabo said. “I think that’s true because you take a lot of classes with each other but also because there are these outlets like AWM where you can be doing work with people but also getting to know people and building relationships. Having smiling faces and friendly people who are going to help you think through problems is really important.”
The two were nominated by Professor of Mathematics Judy Holdener, who encouraged them to write about their work for the magazine Math Horizons. The resulting article, “Math + Struggle = Community” will be published in its September issue.
“Khue and Mariah are clearly making a difference in the academic environment at Kenyon by creating an environment that supports math students at all levels and all genders as they work to master difficult mathematical concepts and methodologies,” Holdener wrote in her nomination. “Most importantly, their efforts are giving Kenyon students a sense of belonging.”
Szabo, a math major and Spanish minor from New York City, intends to pursue a career in statistics. Outside of the classroom, she’s a tour guide, a tutor in the Math and Science Skills Center and treasurer of the women’s Blu-Ray Ultimate Frisbee team, which qualified for the Division III College Championships next month. She also does stage managing and sound design for campus theater productions, including “Footloose” earlier this month.
Tran, a math and music double major from Vietnam who plays piano, received an award in each discipline on Honors Day: the Solomon R.S. Kasper Prize (in mathematics) and the Gabriel A. Ben-Meir Senior Award in Music. She is a community advisor; a Summer Science Scholar; part of the Outdoors Club, Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Jazz Ensemble; and a tutor at the Math and Science Skills Center. After graduation, she will pursue a doctorate in statistics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
The Franklin Miller awards were established by Edward T. “Chip” Ordman ’64, who credits receiving a modest, named award as a student with helping him get into graduate school. The award is meant to give that same small, but meaningful, encouragement to deserving students whose efforts and ingenuity make a difference in the life of the Kenyon community.
Nominations are accepted in September and March of each year.