HutchCC honors program students win conference awards

By Laci Sutton
Staff writer

Hutchinson Community College honors students recently had the opportunity to participate  in the Great Plains Honors Council Regional Conference. The conference allows students from honors programs and colleges from Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas to present their research done throughout the year.

This year’s conference was hosted virtually by the Redwine Honors Program at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas and had more than 250 people in attendance.

Students can be nominated by their institution to compete for two awards – the Dennis Boe award and the Britt Poster awards.

The Dennis Boe award is awarded for scholarly writing and the Britt Poster award is for academic posters.

Eight students receive the Britt Poster award. Four students must have completed a minimum of 60 credit hours, and four students must have completed less than 60 credit hours.

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“Much work goes into these entries through the students’ effort to create a visual representation of their research that conveys their main ideas and findings,” said HutchCC Honors Student Council Advisor and Honors Program Coordinator Ryan Diehl. “HutchCC nominated Victoria Powell’s and Zachary Shanline’s academic posters to be considered for the Britt Poster Awards. Both were based upon their honors projects they completed during the spring of 2020.”

Powell is a Montezuma sophomore.

Powell’s project was titled “The Utilization of Gender Theory and Semantics Within Advertising” and looked at the gender theories in advertisements from the 1950’s to present day.

“Overall, I ended up analyzing 11 specific advertisements in my paper, five of which were highlighted in my poster presentation for the Great Plains Honor Conference,” Powell said. “My main goal was to understand how the general view of gender roles within American society has shifted, changed, and transformed throughout decades by how it is portrayed in popular advertisements.”

Shanline is a Pratt sophomore at HutchCC and also serves as student body president.

Shanline’s project is titled “Behind the Stripes” and discusses the shortage of sports officials due to the difficult scenarios many officials encounter.

“Abuse during games varies from level to level and can be directly associated with the fans’ knowledge/investment of the game,” Shanline said. “Providing insight into the demands of officials can potentially minimize the amount of abuse from fans.”

HutchCC will co-host the 2022 conference, alongside Wichita State University’s Honors College.

“Any interested students can contact me if they would like to help with conference planning and/or presenting at the conference,” Diehl said.

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