Three Nicholls art seniors recently won scholarship awards from the Kappa Pi International Honorary Art Fraternity.

The recipients were Yvonne James of Thibodaux for second place, Elizabeth Foreman of Boutte for third place, and Robin Hartman of Gray for honorable mention. The awards were $300, $200 and $100 respectively.

In order to be eligible for the awards in the international competition, the students were required to submit photographs of five original works of art and two letters of recommendation.

“I was surprised, because I knew that there was going to be a lot of entries, and because it wasn’t just some local contest, but international,” Foreman said.

Hartman and James also shared Foreman’s sentiments, and Hartman was also impressed that all of the recipients were women.

“I found it fascinating that three of the winners were from Nicholls. I also found it amazing that we were all girls, considering that traditionally men are favored in the art world,” Hartman said.

“I am very excited, and this shows that our art department is capable of competing with the best,” James said.

Dr. Deborah Cibelli, assistant professor of art, and Robert Carpenter, associate professor of art, are the advisors of Zeta Alpha Zeta, the Nicholls chapter of Kappa Pi.

“It’s a great way for the students to gain some professional experience putting together rsums, letters of recommendation, photographing their work and submitting their work for critical review,” Cibelli said.

Cibelli is impressed with the efforts of the students in Kappa Pi as exemplified by the scholarship winners.

“What I am very amazed with is that the students have great enthusiasm for this and take it very seriously. It’s their organization, there’s a lot of pride, and they want to do this to promote their own professional credentials and to help the other students as well,” Cibelli said.

Dennis Sipiorski, head of the department, said that he is also impressed by the motivation of the students.

“I think it’s fantastic. The advisors are the ones who kind of pushed them to do it, but the students had to do the follow-through to get the slides made and to send them in. That’s a lot of work, and they made some money doing it, so we think it’s terrific,” Sipiorski said.

Cibelli said the members of the Zeta Alpha Zeta chapter of Kappa Pi have to meet their next challenge.

“Of course, now the challenge is that we have to make Zeta Alpha Zeta chapter first place in the future, and I think that if more people apply, our campus would become better, because we do have some very good, strong art here,” Cibelli said.