Past Winners

2010 - Serena Edinger, Costa Rica

Serena Edinger ’11 has a life philosophy of “daring adventure or nothing.”

So when she was awarded the Timothy M. Smith Inspiration Through Exploration Award, she decided to head south to Costa Rica, work on her Spanish and travel the country.

She has seen an amazing countryside, photographed the rainforest clouds, snorkeled with fluorescent fish, heard the calls of rainbow-feathered parrots perched in trees and watched giant lizards comb the white beaches. She’s also navigated her way on a bus system using her broken Spanish, ended up in unintended cities having magical experiences and even jumped head-first in a 265-foot bungee jump off the Colorado River Bridge.

“I’ve had an incredible experience,” Edinger said. “Every day was an adventure.”

Edinger, an honors student who is studying nursing, knew that traveling was in her future but the opportunity and the funds hadn’t been as available as she had hoped. When she applied for the award, she decided to make the most of her experience.

During the weekdays, Edinger researched cultural sensitivity in a nursing framework by volunteering through International Volunteer HQ in San Jose. She split her time between three sites: a childcare program for disadvantaged youth who have survived domestic abuse, a home for AIDS patients and a private ambulance service. She provided health education such as teaching the children teeth-brushing techniques and the proper hand-washing method to the tune of “La Bamba” (Mi lavo mis manos... mi lavo mis manos con jabon y un poquito de agua....)

“Overall, this experience has been exhausting and challenging, yet invaluable,” said Edinger. “It has made me more globally aware and enhanced my appreciation for the culture. It has inspired a lifelong commitment to understanding the underlying factors behind poverty, poor health care and current health care issues worldwide.”

The impact this experience is having on Edinger – in something as basic and sterile as teaching blood pressure measurements to children – is apparent in one of her early travel blog entries (part of the requirements for the award, including a 5,000-word essay on return).

“I made a promise to myself today, inspired by those little laughs, those eager eyes, and those clinging arms around my legs,” Edinger said. “I made a promise to myself to influence the world with beautiful, helpful character... doing all the good I can, by all the means I can, in all the ways I can, in all the places I can, at all the times I can, to all the people I can, as long as ever I can.”

While traveling alone can be scary for young people, Dr. Gary Luter, director of the Honors Program, said it pays off in the end.

“It makes them more comfortable intermingling with people of other cultures and with taking risks,” he said. “It makes them more global citizens.”

Edinger’s weekends were spent exploring the country, enjoying hammock time and drinking the country’s famous coffee. Following a trip to Tortuga Island, Edinger summed up what travel has inspired in her on one of her final blog entries.

“As I lay on the pristine, baby-powder beach, I think to myself: every day should be as exhilarating as this one, full of mystery, overwhelming beauty, and energy,” she wrote. “I believe that every day can be full of curiosity, anticipation and ecstasy. Though each and every day may not begin with a run on a misty beach, followed by relaxing at beautiful waterfalls, and visiting mystical, remote islands, there should never be a dull page in the stories of our lives. Every day can be like a fairytale.”

2009 - Erin Dumas, Greece and Turkey

For University of Tampa sophomore Erin Dumas, globetrotting is a way of life. In just the last few years, the international and cultural studies major has spent time in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

As this year’s recipient of the UT Honors Program’s Timothy M. Smith Inspiration Through Exploration scholarship, Dumas plans to spend next summer on Europe’s eastern edge, exploring Greece and Turkey.

The visit to Turkey carries with it a somewhat personal purpose for Dumas. Her older brother, a member of the U.S. Army Rangers, was recently deployed to the Middle East. The trip, she says, is an opportunity for her to get a sense of his life in his current surroundings.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to have been able to travel throughout much of Europe already,” Dumas said. “But much of my experience has been to countries that are more developed.”

In her application essay, Dumas explained to UT’s Faculty Honors Committee that Turkey represented a “crossroads” of cultures, between east and west. She intends to explore Istanbul and Athens as well as, time permitting, Crete and the other Greek Islands.

Dumas plans to pursue a career in a health-related field, specifically a job related to health care in developing countries. A long-term goal has been to join the Peace Corps to work in AIDS education in Africa. This past summer, she worked as an intern for a health-based education program geared toward parents and teens in her hometown of Portland, Maine.

“Having that experience and seeing the need for public health on the local level solidified my need to work internationally,” Dumas said.

The Timothy M. Smith Award is given annually to a UT Honors Program student to fund travel during the summer to virtually any destination worldwide. Students who win the highly competitive award receive $2,500 and are required to compose an essay detailing the experience upon their return to the United States.

Dr. Stephen Blessing, chair of the Faculty Honors Committee and assistant professor of psychology, said Dumas has had a well thought out proposal of how she wanted to use the award.

“She demonstrated a passion for travel and desire to learn more about the cultures of the world,” Blessing said.

While Dumas has been a world traveler throughout her life, her recent series of excursions began even before she enrolled at UT. As a high school student, she spent time at an American boarding school in Paris, France. Later, in her senior year, she joined a student exchange program that sent her to Tasmania in Australia for several months. While there, she befriended fellow students from countries throughout the world, including Italy, which she later visited as well.

Dumas chose to attend UT, in part, because of the many opportunities the school offers to study abroad.

Her trip to Greece and Turkey will follow a planned journey to Buenos Aires, Argentina, that scheduled for the spring semester. The Argentina trip is part of a UT Study Abroad program and will help Dumas complete a Spanish minor. She also earned credit toward her major from an Honors Abroad trip to Japan.

2008 - Lorian Knapp, Australia

Over the course of 11 days next summer, University of Tampa sophomore Lorian Knapp will work aboard a boat in Hervey Bay, Australia, gathering information with a team of researchers from the Pacific Whale Foundation.

Using highly sophisticated marine science equipment, the team will spend eight hours per day locating and collecting data on the Australian humpback whale population.

The resulting research could find its way into any number of scholarly publications and provide influence on environmental policy worldwide.

The overseas voyage is a rare opportunity that Knapp chose to pursue upon her receipt of the Timothy M. Smith Inspiration Through Exploration Award – an annual scholarship awarded by the Faculty Honors Committee. The highly competitive award provides $2,000 to a UT Honors student for travel during the summer to virtually any destination. Upon returning to the U.S., the student is required to write an essay detailing his or her experiences overseas.

“Australia is a place I’ve always wanted to go,” Knapp said. “I was floored when they told me I had won. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think I would get it.”

For Knapp, a native of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., who has never before traveled abroad, the award is one of her more notable achievements in less than two years at UT.

Knapp originally aspired to be an animal trainer at Sea World, so her initial academic interests were focused in the field of marine science. After having participated in an internship at Sea World, however, she decided that knowledge of psychology was essential to understanding animal behavior. Thus, she is now committed to a psychology major with a marine science minor, with aspirations of being a marine field researcher. Most of her extracurricular activities relate to these fields of study.

Among her academic achievements, she has recently started to work with Dr. Jeffrey Klepfer, an associate professor of psychology, in an honors research fellowship study that examines how emotions influence investment decisions.

“I knew it would be beneficial to have a very sharp student to help with the study,” Klepfer said. “Lorian is very bright. She has a lot of initiative and a winsome personality.”

Knapp is involved in all aspects of the study, a complex experiment involving the practice of giving extra credit points to students in UT psychology classes, Klepfer said. In addition to helping design and administer the study, Klepfer said Knapp would also assist with an analysis of the final data and a presentation of the initial results at a January conference. Klepfer added that the final results will likely be published in a peer-reviewed journal in psychology – something he hopes will benefit Knapp in future academic and professional pursuits.

“I would love to see it come to fruition before she graduates,” Klepfer said. “She’s a sophomore and already she has accomplished a lot here at the University. She’s just one of the very best. I would say she is one of the top 10 students I have taught at The University of Tampa, and I’ve been here since ’93 so that really says something.”

In addition to her academic involvement, Knapp serves as a resident assistant in UT’s Smiley Hall, is a violinist in the UT orchestra, an active member of Campus Crusade for Christ and one of the founders of a new group called Active Minds, which strives to raise awareness about students with mental health disorders on college campuses.

She has also participated in several internships and leadership activities that correlate with her interests in marine science and psychology. On a recent leadership excursion, she traveled to Crystal River, FL., to swim with manatees and other sea life.

“I’m used to having a lot of things to do,” Knapp said. “I feel very unproductive if I don’t.”

Knapp’s decision to use the Timothy Smith Award to fund an internship with the Pacific Whale Foundation was one that was particularly impressive to the members of the Faculty Honors Committee, according to Dr. Richard Piper, the Director of the Honors Program.

“Lorian had such a well-described project,” Piper said. “It tied right into her minor. Her’s was the most clearly presented and the best written.”

At the conclusion of her voyage overseas, Knapp will return to the United States and write an essay detailing her experiences for publication in Respondez!, UT’s honors journal. Beyond that, Knapp says she intends to participate in more research fellowships before going onto graduate school. 

2007 - Amber Asbourne, Europe

Amber Osborne has been named by the faculty Honors Committee as the 2007 recipient of the Timothy M. Smith Inspiration Through Exploration Award.

The committee received four outstanding applications for this award, established by the family and friends of Timothy M. Smith. A lawyer by trade, Smith loved to travel and write about his many experiences.

In her application for the Timothy M. Smith Award, Amber submitted an essay titled “Mr. Standish,” and described her plans to travel to Europe in Summer 2007 and to write about her experiences there.

From Amber:

I have until recently been one of those people who thought that traveling to far off lands was going to New York City. I was born and raised in New Port Richey, FL for the full extent of my twenty one years on this planet. When I was a little girl I was told by my mother before she passed away from cancer, “You are too big of a person to be in such a small town.” I never really thought much of it till I got to travel to Germany last summer, then I realized exactly what she was talking about.

My creative strengths have always been writing and photography, however like any strength you need to exercise to make it stronger and to do that you need motivation and inspiration. Those are two things that I thought were stored and filed back with my high school diploma. Traveling, I have found is what gives me the inspiration to not only document my experiences but to turn the camera around on myself to figure out my own place in this world.

One of the things I found about traveling to foreign lands is that despite being thousands of miles away from home, nothing is really foreign. The people you meet may speak another language but they aren’t space aliens with laser rays, they are fellow human beings with lives, families, dreams and aspirations just like you. This is where my passion for traveling lies, in the meeting of these people and in experiencing their culture as they do in everyday life. It could be a Holocaust survivor in a café in Leipzig or homeless mohawked punk kids on a subway in Berlin. I have met so many interesting people in my travels to Europe so far, I want to meet all the billions I missed.

In this, I have found my meaning for life something that takes most people most of their lives. I will live in Germany, if only for a year or the rest of my days. As I have sadly learned from my mother, life is too short to sit around in a small town contemplating my fate. Among learning more about myself, I wish to learn more about the language, culture, politics and most of all the lives of people in Europe. For the only benefit I wish to receive is the knowledge that another little girl in New Port Richey may read about my experiences and know that the world outside her door isn’t such a scary place but a beautiful world where people love and live life.

2006 - Adrienne Nadeau, Israel

Adrienne M. Nadeau, a junior writing major from Clearwater, has been awarded the Timothy M. Smith Inspiration Through Exploration Award by the UT Honors Committee.

The award is presented annually to an Honors Program student near the end of the fall semester. It provides a talented student author with an opportunity to travel and find additional inspiration for pursuing literary aspirations.

The selected student receives $2,000 for summer travel expenses. The award is offered through the Honors Program and funded by the family of Timothy M. Smith to honor his memory.

Nadeau has earned a nearly perfect 3.94 grade point average at the University while pursuing a rigorous Honors Program curriculum. In addition, she has had an article published in the 2005 issue of Respondez, the annual Honors Program nonfiction journal, and recently entered the Florida Collegiate Honors Council Writing Contest.

In her application for the Smith Award, she described her plans to travel to Israel in summer 2006 and write about her experiences there.

2004 - Elizabeth Lew, Japan

From Elizabeth Lew:

Attached is a copy of the essay that I wrote after my trip to Kyoto, Japan. Also attached is a link to a few photos from my trip (they are too large to send over e-mail in good conscience).

I would like to thank you and your family and Inspiration through Exploration for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you, as well, for your enormous patience with me and with Tulane. This trip was very important to me, especially as I took it directly after hurricane Katrina and during a really difficult period in my life. It helped me to understand a great deal about my environment and about perspective.

I hope that your foundation will continue to impact the lives of young writers as deeply as it impacted mine.