History | International Studies

ANNA LOW | HISTORY

Photo courtesy of Andy Woehr

BY KATIE FOX

Photographer foxkg19@wfu.edu

When Anna Low began as a first-year at Wake Forest, she was confident that she wanted to be a teacher. The Charlotte, N.C. native initially thought that her strong mathematical skills would make her a good high school math teacher, but when her registration plans fell through during the second semester of freshman year, she ended up in a 300-level History class on Maoist China with Dr. Qiong Zhang that changed the course of her college career. Before coming to Wake Forest, Low had never known history to be a particularly relevant subject, but as she started to explore the department, she fell in love with the narrow scope of each course and she was excited to learn about the more recent chapters in history. Some of Low’s favorite classes have been with Dr. Jake Ruddiman, including a course in the graduate school she took this spring. Low is highly regarded by Dr. Ruddiman. “Anna Low is an amazing student to teach,” he said. “I’ve been delighted to get the chance to work with her over the past several years. She’s a deeply thoughtful person and a brilliantly creative researcher and writer -- she draws strikingly original connections and conclusions from messy evidence. I’ve been so glad that we’ve gotten to work with her in the History Department.” Low will graduate with Honors in History, and wrote her thesis on enslaved women on college campuses in the mid-19th century, inspired by Wake Forest’s own Slavery, Race and Memory Project. She discussed her rigorous research process which involved archival work at the University of North Carolina, the University of Virginia, the University of Alabama and Wake Forest University. She dealt primarily with handwritten documents in her oft-neglected focus of study, and sought to disrupt the popular narrative that enslavement was confined to plantations in the Deep South. Her work revealed universities to be sites of destruction and oppression rather than of scholarship, enlightenment and liberalism. Dr. Simone Caron, her thesis advisor, praised Low for her Honors research, writing, “[Anna’s] analysis of the intersection of race, gender and powerlessness is exceptional. She has given these women, who are often silenced in historical accounts, the attention they have deserved all along.” At the History Department’s end-of-year celebration on Tuesday, Low was awarded both the W.J. Cash Award for Studies in Southern History and the Forrest W. Clonts Award for Excellence in History for her outstanding paper. Outside of history, Low also studied abroad during the summer of 2019 at the Worrell House in London with Dr. Adam Friedman where she compared British and American education systems, examined international education policy and had the opportunity to enjoy the rich history of Europe. “Anna did an absolutely wonderful job in my study abroad class,” wrote Dr. Friedman. “Not only were her reflections, comments and final paper outstanding, but her interaction with English children was phenomenal.” Low served as a research assistant to Dr. Scott Baker for his manuscript on recentering integration within education policy using North Carolina as a case study. Her honors research skills were put to use as she looked at newspaper archives from the 1970s through the early 2000s. Low also edited portions of Dr. Baker’s work. On campus, she was also involved in the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority as a New Member Educator and Public Relations Representative, served as the Vice President of Intellectual Growth on the Panhellenic Council and she worked as a Resident Advisor for two years. While she takes pride in her own accomplishments, Low is also proud to represent her department as she believes history is uniquely positioned as a powerful tool to keep an account of the past and inform the present and future. In her view, historians have the potential to play a more prevalent role in politics, especially by informing decisions in education. Low hopes she can work to make a difference in changing how history is taught, moving beyond the set of facts, dates and names to the valuable stories and takeaways. Low will be pursuing her Master’s in Education Policy and Analysis at Harvard Graduate School of Education after graduation and plans to continue to prioritize both History and Education.

SARAH TEMPLETON | INT. STUDIES

BY CONNOR MCNEELY

Opinion Editor mcnecb19@wfu.edu

For an increasing number of Wake Forest students, majoring in interdisciplinary studies is becoming a sought-after academic endeavor. Although this group of students is marked by their exceptional qualifications and outstanding work ethic, you would be hard-pressed to find an individual with a more impressive resumé and personal journey than Sarah Templeton.

Templeton was always curious about the environment around her.

“I understood at an early age that nature is something that we need to respect and be stewards of,” she said.

But, when it came time to decide her major, Wake Forest only offered a minor in Environmental Studies.

When Templeton eventually decided on an Interdisciplinary Studies major, she found many initial challenges to overcome. First, there was the decision of whether to get a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Sciences degree. At the beginning of her college career, Templeton believed that she would work towards a B.S. in Environmental Studies.

Templeton later discovered that in order to be a “people-oriented” and “networking” person, she would need to make the change to a Bachelor of Arts instead of a Bachelor of Sciences. Sarah credited Dr. Stottlemeyer, the Chair of the Interdisciplinary Majors Committee, as the mentor who guided her to utilize her academic strengths in the best way possible.

Although she was a forerunner for the Environmental Studies major, Templeton wasn’t at all single-minded in her pursuit of excellence at Wake Forest. As a member of the Kappa Delta Sorority, she acted as a representative for “Greeks Go Green” — a peer-to-peer program that empowers student representatives from social and service organizations to engage members of their chapters in sustainable initiatives and practices. Sarah also served as the co-chair of the Academic Excellence Committee, which emphasizes the importance of scholarly success through incentives, mentorship and individual tutoring opportunities.

Templeton’s involvement extended into promoting the cause of sustainability on the Wake Forest campus and beyond. She was the vice president of ECO-Deacs, a student organization for undergraduates who want to combat the global challenges of climate change and environmental justice through conversation and action. She also works as the secretary of Women in STEM.

“As one of the only people on the executive board who has an environmental science degree, it’s great to bring to the table,” Templeton said.

Further along in her time at Wake Forest, the university saw more and more students begin to work towards degrees in the Interdisciplinary Studies program. Eventually, the university began to offer two new major categories for environmental science. Yet, Sarah still finished her time at Wake Forest as an interdisciplinary studies major.

“It involved coordinating a lot of different parties and getting signatures,” she said. “The logistical aspect of it can be challenging, but I’m very grateful that I had people in my corner that were helpful to me.”

There is no better example of the upside of the Interdisciplinary Studies major than the senior thesis project, otherwise known by its IND 399 course listing. Templeton’s thesis, “Mapuche movement and constitutional change: grounded in land,” observed the indigenous rights movement during a moment of flux in the Chilean government.

“It further lent to the development of my knowledge of the environmental field as a complex and nuanced place,” she said.

With the vast collection of knowledge and experience gained in her college studies, Templeton feels extremely grateful for her time at Wake Forest. She has felt that the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for appreciation.

“In the environmental sense, the pandemic has made me more grateful for the little things. Being able to walk outside in a clear sunny day, taking in the natural world around me, it has made me much more determined to protect it. Nature is a great place to escape.”