COPLAC 2024 Award Winners

Nicole Snyder, ’24, of Marietta, Georgia, received COPLAC’s (Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges) David J. Prior Award for her essay titled “A Life of Multitudes” about how chemistry and dance are intertwined in countless ways.

She won $500 for her efforts.

The David J. Prior Award recognizes undergraduate seniors whose academic careers and future goals have been shaped by the transformative power of the liberal arts and sciences experiences at a COPLAC institution, like Georgia College & State University.

The award winners’ essay highlights one or more of COPLAC’s tenants: a student-centered approach to teaching; emphasis on active learning, ethical reasoning, interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge, community engagement, critical and reflective skills and connections between liberal learning and informed, active citizenship.

At GCSU, Snyder studied chemistry with a dance minor, brilliantly exercising the university’s commitment to the liberal arts. Her current chemistry research focuses on the detection of nitroaromatic compounds using porphyrin doped silica solgels.

She often volunteers with the GCSU Science Education Center in its STEMming in the Community program. She’s also a dance instructor, teaching lessons to ages 4- to 65-year-olds.

Snyder plans to pursue a career as a college professor so she can help younger generations the way her GCSU professors, like professor of chemistry, Dr. Catrena Lisse, mentored her.

Georgia College faculty member Dr. Cynthia Alby, professor of secondary education, also won a COPLAC award - the 2024 Charles Dunn Award.