Scholar of the Week: March 1

Johnna Keever
The Paw Print

Non-traditional student Sydney Bruner is another outstanding student here at Adams State.  Sydney was nominated for Scholar of the Week for her exceptional ability to come to class prepared and providing other students with intelligent comments during discussions.
Sydney transferred from Aims Community College in Loveland Colo., so she could work on finishing her Bachelor’s Degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing.  As a senior her workload is getting more difficult, but Sydney seems to be taking the challenge and running with it keeping a GPA of 3.36.
Dr. Mazel nominated Sydney for the Scholar of the Week because she is an exceptional student. Mazel has Sydney in his Contemporary Literary Theory course and had this to say, “Sydney can be relied on to do the reading and understand the reading and comment intelligently in class.”  Sydney is not a traditional student she moved to Alamosa from Greeley Colorado and she is older than most students.  Graduating this spring Sydney is considering going to graduate school, and teaching English.
Sydney is also enrolled in a Shakespeare course, and as a creative writer believes is good to read writing and understand writers that were considered to be a great. Professor Dr. Owens had this to say about Sydney, “She is very bright, a great writer, engaged in her writing, and has great points when engaged in conversations.”  Sydney is reserved but her professors were happy to hear that she was a nominated for Scholar of the Week, and felt she was a great choice.
Creative Writing emphasis seems to be a great choice for Sydney; her professors all had similar things to say about her being creative and having a great understanding of what she was learning in her courses.  Dr. Guerrero- Murphy her professor in Modern Poetry course feels Sydney is, “insightful, exceptionally well prepared, and very creative.  She brings a great deal of knowledge to class discussions and is a fine poet.”
Finishing her Creative Writing Degree this May, Sydney is keeping herself busy, but still manages to keep herself connected to her schoolwork.  She hopes to get into a Masters Program in English in fall 2012, to obtain her teaching license. She has worked hard at keeping up with her class work, and keeping her creativity. Her goal was to enjoy herself in her last two years of school, and Sydney says , “ I think my creative writing emphasis has definitely allowed me to do so.  Although Adams State is a smaller school, I have enjoyed my one-on-one interactions in class with both teachers and students alike and really feel I wouldn’t have gotten this type of experience anywhere else. I think Adams has a great little English department with some outstanding teachers and this is exactly what I was looking for after two years at UNC.”