Union Students Win Ledford Awards: Will Research Literature of the Appalachian Coalfields

Union College students Phillip Jones, Barbourville, Ky., and Heidi Marsh, Benham, Ky., have earned Colonel Lee B. Ledford awards.  
 
The awards are sponsored by the Appalachian College Association (ACA).  They offer undergraduate students an opportunity to pursue research interests over the course of a summer.  Winners receive a stipend and research expenses.
 
Jones and Marsh will spend the summer researching the literature of the Appalachian coalfields.  Their work will take them to the special collections of regional libraries and possibly the Library of Congress. They will also visit the settings of the works they read, and interview living authors and survivors of dead authors.  
 
The students will conduct their research under the guidance of Jimmy Dean Smith, Ph.D., professor of English at Union.   
 
Smith, who has been researching the literature of Appalachian mill villages, believes the award presents a rare opportunity for undergraduates.  
 
“They will conduct the kind of research most literary scholars do not attempt until they reach graduate school,” he said.
 
The Appalachian College Association is a non-profit consortium of 34 liberal arts colleges in the Appalachian region.  Its member institutions represent approximately 42,500 students.

Union College is a private liberal arts college related to The United Methodist Church and located in Barbourville, Ky.