Freshman nursing student recognized with Honorable Mention for Honors essay
Freshman Lillian DuFour received "Commendation for Honorable Mention in the Seamus Heaney Award" on April 13 for her essay "Diving into the Minds of Sinners" which was part of her Honors Augustine and Culture Seminar (ACS) in the fall 2017 semester. Lily, a native of Washington, D.C., compared St. Augustine鈥檚 spiritual autobiography Confessions and Dante鈥檚 Inferno. She is a Presidential Scholar at the M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing.
鈥淢y paper examined how Dante and Augustine are clearly different in how they present trying to get closer to God, but they both ultimately want the same goal for us to shun the sin and turn towards a path of enlightenment,鈥� Lily explains, further noting, 鈥淚 was fascinated in how Dante carefully crafted each circle of Hell and aligned the punishment with each particular sinner. All of these punishments appealed to a different audience and echoed Augustine鈥檚 issues with God as well.鈥�
鈥淭he Augustine and Culture Seminar is a two-semester humanities sequence (ACS 1000: Ancients, and ACS 1001: Moderns) which educates students in Augustinian inquiry through a great-books curriculum and an intensive program of critical reading, writing, and discussion,鈥� according to the program鈥檚 webpage.