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WMU graduate wins "best paper" award

April 21, 2005

KALAMAZOO--A paper by a recent Western Michigan University graduate garnered the "best paper" award at a recent national conference.

Brian Crisher, a political science graduate from Battle Creek, Mich., won first prize in the "Best Undergraduate Student Paper" category at the 13th annual Illinois State University Conference for Students of Political Science. The conference was held April 1 in Normal, Ill., and drew participants from many well-known institutions, including Cornell, DePaul, Duke and Johns Hopkins universities. The award came with a $100 bonus.

Crisher, a 1999 graduate of Battle Creek Center High School, wrote his paper, titled "Just War Theory in the 21st Century and the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States," before graduating with honors from WMU in December 2004. The paper was based on his honors thesis for the WMU Department of Political Science . The thesis project was supervised by Dr. Gunther Hega, associate professor of political science.

Crisher is getting a lot of mileage out of the paper. In addition to his award, the paper will be published in the spring issue of Critique: A Worldwide Student Journal of Politics.

"It's a really rare distinction for an undergraduate student to win such an award and publish a paper," Hega says.

Media contact: Mark Schwerin, 269 387-8400, mark.schwerin@wmich.edu

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