No man is an island. Philosophically speaking, this idiom can be translated to describe how human beings are connected to each other and how we need to be part of a community in order to be our best selves. 

But University of West Georgia student Brant Entrekin – who was awarded with Best Paper during the UWG-hosted Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference (GURC) – also used the phrase to describe his emotions upon receiving the statewide recognition.

“Receiving this award shows the quality of the professors and the support staff at UWG,” said Entrekin, a philosophy major. “It shows that my professors really have prepared me well to succeed in the area I want to work in – academic writing – and that they truly provide the resources by being supportive at every level – from research, to drafting, to revising, to the very process of finding and submitting papers to conferences.”

GURC is a regional, multidisciplinary conference open to undergraduates both within Georgia and beyond. The annual conference promotes the dissemination of original student scholarship conducted in partnership with a faculty/staff mentor and serves as a networking conference providing undergraduates with connections to career and graduate school opportunities.

Entrekin is regarded by faculty as one of the most outstanding students of UWG’s philosophy program and a prime example of a student researcher.

“It's impressive that he presented two papers at the conference,” said Dr. Robert Lane, professor of philosophy. “But it's even more noteworthy that his second paper won the Best Paper Award for the entire conference.”

Entrekin also credited the diversity in UWG’s philosophy program as another reason for the accomplishments he’s experienced as a student and researcher. 

“Academically, the philosophy program at UWG is a crowning jewel of diversity and rigor,” he described. “It would be challenging to find a program with as many professors from different academic backgrounds and interests as UWG. This creates a rich and unique philosophy education, as the many fields of philosophy represented cause students to be extra critical of every idea and allows us to pull from a wider variety of thinkers when crafting our arguments.”

As for the future, Entrekin plans to graduate from UWG with his B.A. in philosophy this December. After graduation, he intends to continue his education by pursuing a Ph.D. in one of his areas of interest – the philosophy of law, political philosophy and religion.

“The work I’ve completed at UWG already has laid excellent groundwork for future endeavors in these fields,” he concluded. “I am excited about the potential to one day teach philosophy to undergrads and inspire them in the same way my philosophy professors have inspired me.”