Courtney is a double major in art history and English education, with a double minor in Classics and philosophy. Just from this ambitious program of study, it’s clear that she sets high standards for herself intellectually and is not afraid to tackle a challenge or to engage with learning in diverse ways. But Courtney’s passion for knotty problems and thorny subjects is paired with an amazing quality of joie-de-vivre. Just to give an example, as a freshman Undergraduate Research Fellow, she worked on a group of medieval Spanish miracle legends; the language was archaic and very different from the Spanish she had learned in school, the content was to say the least peculiar, and the research project well outside the realm of what was comfortable or familiar for her. Nevertheless, she approached the project with enthusiasm, asking excellent questions of the material and her mentor, and independently seeking out resources to help her deal with the strange vocabulary and grammar. She never complained, and even described the work as “fun.” As she has matured as a researcher, she has developed her own projects with an equal degree of commitment and energy: two URCO grants have allowed her to develop and curate an exhibition at the AVA and pursue her undergraduate Honors thesis research in museum and archive collections in California. In addition, she has contributed generously to the program in art history as a peer mentor as an Undergraduate Teaching Fellow and as a Rhetoric Associate. Courtney’s initiative, her creative and intellectually mature approach to research, her critical rigor, and above all her ability to take pleasure in even the most intractable problems in her work are an inspiration and a positive model for her peers and her teachers alike.