In honor of the legacy of the legendary amateur golfer, scholar and Emory alumnus Bobby Jones, four outstanding Emory College of Arts and Sciences students will spend the next year at the University of St Andrews through the Robert T. Jones Jr. Scholarship program. Each year, both Emory and St Andrews host the “Bobby Jones Scholars,” selected from among the top students at each institution.
Graduating seniors Sojourner Hunt, Channelle Russell, Bryn Walker and Sean Woo join a community of more than 300 scholars who have participated in the program since its founding in 1976. The program recognizes students who show academic excellence, exemplary character and integrity. Forging a permanent bond of friendship and collaboration between St Andrews and Emory, the scholarship aims “to perpetuate Jones’ memory in the hearts and minds of young people by creating a permanent memorial to his sense of values and character.”
“Due to COVID-19, we did not select scholars in 2021 and so we opened this year’s competition to both the Class of 2021 and 2022. The result was a remarkably strong and diverse pool of candidates,” says Joanne Brzinski, senior associate dean for undergraduate education and director of the Bobby Jones Program.
“All of the candidates we met have left their mark on the Emory community and selecting the four recipients was a difficult decision for the selection committee,” Brzinski says. “We know that those selected will make Emory proud during their time in St Andrews.”
All of the students plan to spend their time at St Andrews pursuing master’s degrees. This year, two scholars will pursue degrees in museum and heritage studies, one will study creative writing in prose and one will complete a program in chemistry.
Meet the 2022 Bobby Jones Scholars
Sojourner Hunt
Described by a recommender as “a dynamic presence in a wide range of undertakings,” Hunt has excelled in her academic pursuits. As a Middle Eastern and South Asian studies major and art history minor who plans to undertake a degree in museum and heritage studies, Hunt spent much of her time at Emory working as an intern and research assistant at the Michael C. Carlos Museum. She is also a Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, where she is developing new displays and interpretations of nineteenth-century portraits of Native American leaders by Henry Inman.
Hailing from Chicago, Illinois, Hunt developed a passion for museum artifacts while studying museum ethics and Hindu art. Of particular interest is the area of provenance — the ownership history of an object.
“Younger audiences are becoming more socially conscious,” she says. “They want to know how museums are acquiring objects.”
To this end, Hunt worked with researchers at the Carlos Museum to place eight objects from their Asian collection on the Association of Art Museum Directors’ Object Registry. The registry is an industry forum for the display and discussion of museum objects with uncomfortable provenance. Of this work, Hunt is “proud of this choice as it helps further establish Emory and the Carlos Museum as a leader in provenance and ethical collecting.”
Beyond her academic interests, Hunt serves as a diversity fellow for the Office of Undergraduate Admission and is active with both the Emory Dance Company and AHANA dance, serving on the AHANA executive board.
Channelle Russell
An English and history joint major, with a minor in anthropology, Russell has a deep interest in storytelling.
“From a young age, I have been interested in storytelling as a way to explore and interrogate the world,” Russell says.
Finding her major fields as a sophomore, she pursued a course of study devoted to issues of power, race and gender through scholar-writers such as Audre Lorde, Jamaica Kincaid and Toni Morrison, among others. “Like me, they are all Black women with a story to share,” Russell says.
A first-generation college student who resides in Atlanta, she plans to undertake a master’s degree in creative writing in prose at the University of St Andrews. Her academic interests were born from “the silences and gaps of the literary canon,” as she sought “the ghosts of Black women.” Her work as an undergraduate allowed her to negotiate herself into the narratives that she wanted to read, and subsequently into the narratives that she wants to create, hallmarks that can be seen through her work as an arts and entertainment writer with the Emory Wheel and as the editor-in-chief of Blackstar* Magazine.
Awarded a Woodruff Dean’s Achievement Scholarship at the end of her first year, she was described by a recommender as having “an expansive intellect, keen wit, compassion, poise and thoughtful perspectives on various issues in the world.” She is currently a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, and her honors thesis investigates gender, sound and slavery in textual representation of Jamaican women.
Bryn Walker
A graduate of Emory’s Oxford College, Walker was described by one of her recommenders as a “delightful person who brings humility, good humor and a mature point of view to all that she undertakes.” A history major who was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 2021, Walker’s research interests relate to the American South, cultural and social movements, public history and historical memory.
She was drawn to undertake a master’s degree in museum and heritage studies because of an interest in the “parallels between memory in the U.S. South, which was part of my undergraduate research focus, and Scottish historical memory. Methodologically, the U.K. has a much more robust tradition of public history and I’d like to expand the possibilities for public history scholarship in the United States.”
A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, the first-generation college student’s time at Emory has been marked by a dedication to service. Currently a research ambassador for Emory College’s Undergraduate Research Program, Walker has also spent time on both the Oxford College and Emory College Honor Councils, helped new students acclimate to Emory as a two-time orientation leader and was a diversity ambassador for Oxford College’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
Issues of diversity have played a significant role in Walker’s research experiences to date, including work on country-level migration policy responses to COVID-19, and a 10-week research fellowship studying Confederate monuments in Georgia and tracing the Georgia United Daughters of the Confederacy’s relationship to state government officials.
Beyond Emory, her public history focus has resulted in two internship experiences, one as an interpretive intern with the National Parks Service at Mount Rushmore National Park and the other with the Teaching with Primary Sources Program at the Library of Congress.
Sean Woo
Hailing from Suwanee, Georgia, Woo has accomplished much during her four years at Emory. A chemistry and music performance double major, Woo is a member of Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Society, was elected to the Emory 100 Senior Honorary Class of 2022 and has held several leadership positions in Residence Life, Pre-Health Advising and with the Emory Catholic Student Union.
Woo is currently studying Pompe disease, a rare but lethal illness, as part of her honors thesis work in partnership with the Emory School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics. Her research has focused on repurposing FDA-approved drugs to treat patients who have the most common form of the disease.
Described as having a commitment to academic excellence, one of her recommenders noted that Woo is “humble, yet tenacious and hard working in a way that is action oriented.”
With plans to attend medical school in the future, Woo says that the master’s degree from St Andrews in chemical science will help her “better understand the small yet powerful reactions that govern human biology and individual health, deepening my foundation in chemistry and its practical application in the realm of health and medicine.”