May 2024 graduate Emily Patton has been selected as a National Collegiate Honors Council Portz Scholar.
For the first time in the history of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Honors College, one of its students has been rewarded in the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (NCHC) annual competition for outstanding undergraduate honors papers.
Emily Patton, a May 2024 graduate and Brock Scholar who earned bachelor’s degrees in environmental science and humanities: international studies, has been selected as one of four 2024 Portz Scholars—one of the most prestigious honors for undergraduate students in honors programs across the country.
“Emily’s winning this award is a really great opportunity to recognize the capstone achievement of the honors program, writing a thesis and the support that the faculty gives to students,” UTC Office of National Scholarships Director Trey Straussberger said. “This is national recognition for how exceptional UTC students are and how exceptional their research is.”
Portz Scholars receive a stipend and present their papers at the NCHC national conference taking place in late October in Kansas City, Missouri.
“The thesis is a long-term project; it’s two semesters of work, and students are often creating substantial bodies of literature that require them to mine through endless primary and secondary sources to do extensive lab work,” said Honors College Associate Dean Will Kuby, the director of the college’s thesis program. “To be able to put that much effort into it and to write something that you’re proud of is a prize in and of itself, but to see something go on and be recognized for its quality shows the amount of intellectual engagement Emily was able to put forth.”
Patton’s journey to becoming a Portz Scholar is deeply connected to her personal ties to the Appalachian region—which she explored in her honors thesis titled “The Gavel and the Camera: Environmental Law and Photojournalism’s Relationship to Appalachian Identity.”
“My grandfather (Jim Patton) was born in Harlan, Kentucky, and I just grew up on stories of his family,” said Patton, a 2020 graduate of Signal Mountain High School. “His father was a miner, and I grew up listening to stories about coal towns and the lives of miners—how everything from the store to the stamps was controlled by the coal companies.
“He would always talk about how he moved from Kentucky to Grundy County, Tennessee, when he was in high school or middle school—and he always talked about how his dad never let him go in the mines. My family and the opportunities that I’ve had … would have been a lot different if his dad didn’t protect him in that way.”
After her grandfather passed away in 2018, she went through his belongings—old yearbooks, photos, stamps—and “that sparked a deeper interest in our family history and the broader Appalachian narrative.”
Little did she know that spark would later ignite a research pursuit.
Emily Patton, shown in the Guerry Center Reading Room, is the first UTC Honors College student to be selected as a Portz Scholar.
Under the guidance of Environmental Science Professor John Tucker, who served as her thesis director, and Assistant Professor of English Jayda Coons, who served as her examiner, Patton’s thesis explored the impact of federal policies and photojournalism on the public’s perception of Appalachia. She highlighted how external narratives have shaped the region’s identity and its environmental interactions.
The inspiration for the thesis came from a course Coons was developing, “Representing Appalachia: Bearing Witness in Contemporary Art and Literature,” created in collaboration with Institute of Contemporary Art Director Rachel Waldrop, for an exhibition that showcased the work of photojournalist Stacy Kranitz—who had spent many years in Appalachia forming connections and exploring the region’s history.
“We were building out a class around that and the history of representation of that region,” Coons recalled, “and Emily came up to me after a general meeting—I hadn’t met her before—and she said, ‘I want to write my thesis about Appalachia. I really want to take this class.’
“She was a great student, really engaged, really thoughtful, really interdisciplinary. She brought with her environmental science and environmental studies work and philosophical issues and the thesis really captures that.”
Said Patton, “When I looked into that class, it wasn’t initially about writing a thesis; it was more about understanding where I came from. But as I learned more, everything started to click. I realized that I could use the academic tools I had to explore my own heritage, especially after watching the documentary ‘Harlan County, USA,’ it felt like my grandfather would have wanted to watch it and talk about it with me. That was when I knew I wanted to dig deeper.
“The more I studied, the more I saw how art, environmental science and law intersected in Appalachia. I didn’t set out to write a groundbreaking thesis; it just grew from my personal interests and academic experiences.”
Kuby praised Patton’s interdisciplinary approach.
“Emily did a really impressive job of figuring out how to navigate the requirements of environmental science, making sure that this was a project that fit those parameters and was acceptable to (Biology, Geology and Environmental Science) faculty while also engaging so many of these other elements that were interesting to her—such as the questions about fine art, photojournalism and environmental law.”
Tucker, who was Patton’s instructor in three different courses during her undergraduate days, lauded her strong command of environmental law and policy, “which is my area of expertise, but took her thesis far beyond where I could imagine.”
“I’ve taught and mentored some excellent students in my 27 years at UTC, but Emily stands out in several respects,” Tucker said. “Emily has the unusual ability to conceptualize novel research questions and methods, cross traditional disciplinary boundaries, and integrate seemingly disparate topics into cohesive and compelling analyses. She is self-motivated, diligent, and a very creative writer in terms of concepts, structure and word choice.
“I found her thesis mind-bending, skillfully drawing upon and integrating concepts from science, philosophy and art.”
Patton, who also served as UTC Philosophy Association President, a member of the English Club and a 2024 winner of the North Callahan Humanities Essay Prize during her undergraduate days, said her thesis journey wasn’t without its challenges. In fact, she confessed to often feeling overwhelmed by the scope of her project.
“It’s really strange. This probably sounds self-deprecating, but I didn’t really think it was that great of a paper,” she said. “I always felt there was more to explore, more to write. But this recognition has been such a confidence booster. It’s made me realize there’s value in my perspective and in the way I connect different fields.
“I’m so grateful that the Honors College saw something in my work that they believed had the potential to be recognized. That kind of belief is invaluable.”
And the validation—first for having the thesis submitted to the NCHC and then for being selected a Portz Scholar—“is awesome,” she said.
“I want to pursue environmental law. I’m studying for the LSAT right now and I’m going to start law applications soon because I want to work in the field,” Patton said. “There’s definitely more to be written.”
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