East Tennessee State University will recognize 308 students for superior scholastic achievement during the annual Academic Excellence Convoc-ation on Tuesday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the D.P. Culp Center’s Auditorium.
The 35 Faculty Award winners, voted by the faculty as the most outstanding students in each respective academic department, will be honored, along with all graduating students achieving a 3.5-4.0 grade point average, denoting cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude academic standings. Graduating students in the prestigious ETSU Honors Scholars Program will also be recognized.
This year’s special speaker is Dr. Jack Higgs, professor emeritus from the department of English.
His books include Voices from the Hills: Selected Readings of Southern Appalachia (1974) and Appalachia Inside Out: a Sequel (1995), both co-edited with Ambrose Manning and the latter with Jim Wayne Miller; Laurel and Thorn: The Athlete in American Literature (1982), which was translated into Japanese in 1995; God in the Stadium: Sports and Religion in America (1995), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; and with Ralph Turner, The Cowboy Way: The Western Leader in Film, 1945-1995.
He has presented over 400 lectures at civic clubs, churches, libraries, schools and universities on Appalachian, Southern and American literature and culture and the literature of sports.
Higgs is also the author of over 100 articles and reviews.
This event is free and open to the public, and family and friends of the students being honored are especially encouraged to attend this ceremony, which will be followed by a reception in the Culp Center ballroom.

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