Awards and Honors

Departmental Awards and Honors — Spring 2020

Heartiest congratulations to our Class of 2020 Art, Art History and Film Majors and Minors! We celebrate your inquisitiveness, creativity, commitment, and hard work, which shined especially bright during this last semester. We applaud you for your intellectual, creative and personal achievements at Boston College. We also recognize our Seniors who are receiving departmental awards and honors and the Studio Art Majors and Minors who are participating in the virtual Senior Art Exhibition.

Richard and Marianne W. Martin Memorial Award

In recognition of high academic and creative achievement in Art History in this year of 2020. Established by the Boston College Friends of Art, this award is given annually in memory of Marianne W. Martin, Professor of Art History at Boston College from 1976-1989, and her husband Richard.

Lydia Antrim

Studio Art

“Lydia’s mixed media works create a glimpse of a recent past, a simpler time, an art of memories, of home and the people who inhabit it… she fills her art with enriching vision, a sense of the people and place called home.”

Erin Rosengren

Art History

“Erin has a real talent for Art History, and she writes with a level of clarity and thoughtfulness that is rare among undergraduates. … she integrates complex scholarly material with her own bright and original ideas, and these are supported by thoughtful, sensitive, and often quite beautiful formal analysis.”

Allison R. Macomber, Jr. Award

This award was established and supported by gifts from the Horbach Fund for outstanding work in the Fine Arts in honor of Allison R. Macomber, Jr., Artist-in-Residence at Boston College.

Alyssa Trejo

Art History

“Alyssa approaches all of her work with great passion, curiosity, and dedication. …a natural scholar, devoted to understanding and ameliorating inequality within and beyond the academy. In her writing she has consistently demonstrated a nuanced grasp of the material, a creative approach to analysis and argumentation, strong research skills, and a clear, confident voice.”

Ziyang Xiang

Studio Art

“Ziyang's Insomnia photographs depict our nighttime mental rambles, during an anxious time when many find it hard to regain a sure foothold, his vision is one that brilliantly captures our uncertainty.”

Jeffery Howe Art History Award

This award, established by the Boston College Arts Council in 2011 to honor Professor Howe’s outstanding service to the Arts at BC, recognizes a Boston College senior who has demonstrated outstanding scholarship in the area of art or architectural history.

Ariel Lynch

“Exceptionally sharp … energized by the social consequences of theoretical material … her critical incisiveness is accompanied by abundant good humor … has a rare combination of talents … tremendous enthusiasm for learning … remarkably poised for her years, she blends a sense of curiosity, boundless energy, and great initiative and capacity for hard work…”

J. Robert Barth, S.J., Award for Excellence in the Arts

Given in honor of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1988-1999), who established and nurtured departments and programs in the arts, this award is presented annually to a senior who has made outstanding contributions to BC in the fine or performing arts.

Emma Hardy

“Emma Hardy is one of the most creative students I ever worked with. Every new series of work reinvents her inner vision. Nature seen though a lens of suspended moment and captured beauty freezes the mad onrush of time.”

Costa-Gavras Award

Costa-Gavras, director of socially conscious films such as Z, The Confession, Missing, and Amen, has provoked his international audiences to reflect more deeply about issues of social justice. This award in his name acknowledges the work of a graduating Senior in Film Studies who follows in his footsteps with an original film on an issue of social justice.

Ciarra Duffy

“Ciarra is a wonderfully hardworking and dedicated student who always shows up and gives her work her all. She excelled in film production, screenwriting, and film history. … she walked well in the footsteps of the Greek-French film director Costa-Gavras …she will be sorely missed at Boston College.”

Screenwriting Award

This award is given in recognition of excellence in screenwriting in the Film Studies Program.

Brandon Brito

“It was a pleasure to work with Brandon Brito this year. His stellar drive to make his work stand out showed up on the page. His work has been unique in that he embraces taking what he knows and embellishing it to create powerful stories and character.”