May 6, 2016 - History major Seth Reid was recognized at Union University’s Annual Awards Convocation on May 6, 2016, as the first place winner in the 2016 Dr. James Alex Baggett History Research Paper Competition. Dr. Stephen Carls, Chair of the Department of History, presented him with an award certificate and a check. The title of his paper was “The Fall of Tenochtitlan: The Difficult Distinction between Civil War and Conquest.”
The criteria used in judging the several submitted papers included the use of primary sources, the originality of the topic, the historical quality and depth of the study, writing style, appropriate footnoting or end-noting, and a correctly done bibliography. All papers had to be written within the past year in a history course.
The research paper competition is named in honor of Dr. James Alex Baggett, who was a member of the Union University history department from 1977 to his retirement in 1998. He was also the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences during the last decade of his service to Union. Dr. Baggett is the author of the following books: So Great a Cloud of Witnesses: Union University, 1823-2000 (2000); The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and Reconstruction (2003); and Homegrown Yankees: Tennessee’s Union Cavalry in the Civil War (2009).
Dr. Stephen Carls (left) presents the first place award in the Dr. James Alex Baggett History Research Paper Competition to Seth Reid at Union University's Annual Awards Convocation on May 6, 2016. Photo by Kristi Woody