Georgetown College’s Tropaia 2021 Student Award Winners
Every year, Georgetown College honors its top academic achievers in the annual Tropaia ceremony. Congratulations to our two Department of Performing Arts seniors who received 2020-21 awards in recognition of their academic and artistic excellence, creativity, and initiative in their fields!
Emily Kim: Kircher Medal
The Kircher Medal is named after Jesuit polymath Reverend Athanasius Kircher, S.J. (1601–1680), whose interdisciplinary approach to the study of music profoundly influenced the fields of music history, acoustics, composition, aesthetics, and ethnomusicology. The Kircher Medal is presented annually to the senior American Musical Culture major, who in the judgment of the faculty, best exemplifies excellence, creativity, and initiative in the fields of music scholarship and performance.
Emily Kim is a 2021 graduate who double majored in Government and American Musical Culture on the Ethnomusicology track. During her time at Georgetown, she worked for the Department of Performing Arts as a Friday Music Series assistant and research assistant for Professor DelDonna, co-founded a CSJ club called SNUGS at Georgetown that will provide free swim instruction to children in the community with disabilities, and was a copy editor for The Hoya and assistant editor for the GU Undergraduate Law Review, among other things. She will fondly miss classes in McNeir Hall and New North, playing the pianos on campus whenever she needed to destress, and the wonderful people she met here—especially the music faculty and her musical friends! Next, she’s headed to New York City to pursue a master’s in Human Rights Studies at Columbia University.
Kellan Brown Oelkers: Davis Medal
The Davis Medal is named after Terrance De’Shawn Davis, a beloved and gifted Theater and Performance Studies Major who indelibly inspired our community and who lost his life tragically in September of 2008. The Davis Medal is presented annually to the Theater and Performance Studies major who in the judgment of the faculty best exemplifies academic and artistic excellence, creativity, and initiative in the field of theater and performance studies.
Kellan Oelkers (COL ’21) feels incredibly lucky to have found his on-campus home in the Theater and Performance Studies department. He walked into Acting I his freshman fall and liked it so much that he never left. Since then, he’s had the opportunity to work on a variety of productions with the department, ranging from an intimate devised work about the environment, to a raucous Restoration comedy. He’s also loved getting to hang around the scene shop as part of his work/study. He’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the TPST professors and staff members for their invaluable mentorship over the past few years. He’s excited to pay it forward next year as a Teach for America corps member in Memphis, Tennessee. He looks forward to finding ways to combine his passions for teaching and theater and hopes to make his way back to D.C. soon.