Megan Nicole Wong ‘21
Each year, Denison chooses a select few to receive recognition as a President’s Medalist, Denison’s highest student honor. The preeminent criterion for receipt of a President’s Medal, established in 1985, is academic achievement. In addition, candidates must embody some combination of the following: service to the community, contribution to the arts, enlargement of the community’s global perspective, athletic fitness and achievement, leadership ability and contribution to community discourse.
Megan Nicole Wong, biochemistry bachelor of science major, was selected as a 2021 President’s Medalist. Her citation reads:
Scoring a 69 in 18 holes of golf not only is a Denison single-round scoring record, but Megan, it might itself be grounds for a President’s Medalist award. Beyond any one match, though, is the fact that you have been an All-American Scholar in Varsity Women’s Golf all four years of your college career. Our campus Director of Athletics says without hesitation that you symbolize “all that is right and thriving in Denison Athletics.” In Biochemistry, you have done research with Nationwide Children’s Hospital, along with excelling in your course and lab assignments; so much so that our Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has named you a Department Senior Fellow. As a lab assistant, summer researcher, and teaching assistant through the pandemic, you have been a vital player in reimagining what it means to be part of a learning community, when in-person support and guidance has to happen through other means. At the same time, you were attentive and conscientious with those matters that still have to be in-person, like tending tanks of sea urchins and mixing up batches of artificial seawater. One of your nominators said you are “a model of competence and excellence.”
