The Jane B. Hart Awards
Jane B. Hart, an anthropology alumna, has generously created an endowment to promote scholarship in anthropology at GW. The money supports a distinguished speakership and two annual awards to undergraduate students: the Hart Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement and the Hart Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis. There is one academic achievement award for each of our three major programs (Anthropology, Archaeology, and Biological Anthropology) and there may be up to three thesis awards when there are equally deserving students with different majors.
Any faculty member advising an honors thesis may submit a nomination for consideration by the Hart Awards Committee. Nominating is done in the spring, but theses by graduates of the preceding summer and fall are eligible. Theses must be submitted to the Hart Committee by April 15; decisions are usually announced before May 1.
Columbian College is notified of Hart Award winners, and the awards are noted in the students' official records. They may or not also be shown in the spring commencement program.
For their theses to be considered, students must be sure to follow all the guidelines posted under Departmental Honors.
Winners of Hart Awards to date are listed below.
Hart Undergraduate Thesis Award winners
2004: Katarzyna Januszkiewicz (Archaeology) and Angel Zeininger (Biological Anthropology)
2005: Anita Vin (Biological Anthropology)
2006: Michaela Huffman (Biological Anthropology) and Alene Kennedy (Anthropology)
2007: Joanna Brucker (Anthropology) and Carolyn Thimot (Biological Anthropology)
2008: Jessica Calvanico (Anthropology), Robyn Le Blanc (Archaeology), Lance Levenson (Biological Anthropology), Lia Schwartz (Biological Anthropology)
Hart Outstanding Academic Achievement Award winners
2004: Deanne Adams (Anthropology); Moriah Amit (Archaeology); Sarah Hokom (Biological Anthropology)
2005: Erica Stupp (Archaeology); Anita Vin (Biological Anthropology); no award in Anthropology
2006: Annie-Laurie Gilsdorf (Anthropology); Laura Gongaware (Archaeology); Sara Herkes (Biological Anthropology); Catherine Kearns (Archaeology)
2007: Meghan Gibas (Anthropology); Jeffrey Leon (Archaeology); Carolyn Thimot (Biological Anthropology)
2008: Lucy Jickling (Anthropology), Sneh Patel (Archaeology), Lance Levenson (Biological Anthropology)
About Jane B. Hart
Jane B. ("Janey") Hart (B.A., Anthropology, 1970) was an accomplished aviator and women's rights pioneer. In the early 1960s, she was among a select group of women who were skilled airplane pilots with commercial ratings. A mother of eight and the wife of a U.S. Senator (Philip A. Hart, D-Mich.), Hart was the oldest participant in the Lovelace Foundation's Woman in Space Program, a privately-funded project testing women pilots for astronaut fitness at a time when women were not allowed to become astronauts. She was one of only 13 women (the Mercury 13) to pass the rigorous physical tests developed by NASA to select their astronauts. Despite the test results, NASA notified them by telegram that they would not be selected for space flights. As Hart told a group of Michigan college students in 2001, "All of you women engineers would have had a hell of a time trying to find a job back then. It was like they were trying to segregate space."
Hart spoke with Vice President Lyndon Johnson and testified before Congress to promote the rights of women to serve as astronauts. In 1964, after Johnson had become President, he named Hart to the newly created Women's Advisory Committee on Aviation.
Although she did not travel to space, Hart was among those who paved the way for the first women astronauts and witnessed Lt. Col. Eileen Collins become America's first woman pilot astronaut in 1995.
Hart was also a founding member of NOW (National Organization for Women) in 1966 and was active in Democratic Party affairs for many years. She is now retired.
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