Two extraordinary seniors shared the stage at the Alumni Association Luncheon and Awards Ceremony at Jadwin Gymnasium on Saturday.
President Shapiro awarded the M. Taylor Pyne Honor Prize to Michael Bosworth '00 and Benjamin Sommers '00 for their "excellence in scholarship, character and effective support of the best interests of Princeton University."
The Pyne prize — which is the highest distinction for academic excellence the University confers on an undergraduate — includes a monetary prize equivalent to one year's tuition.
"I dreamt of coming to Princeton for a long time ever since walking through Fitz Randolph Gate during my brother's tour when I was 12," Bosworth said in his acceptance speech.
Bosworth is more than just a superior student. He serves on the history department's undergraduate advisory committee, the University's committee on admission and financial aid and is a resident adviser in Forbes College where he served as chair of the college council.
He also initiated the Class of 2000 Millennium Project, which has brought high-profile speakers including Lech Walesa and Doris Kearns Goodwin to Princeton.
The Pyne prize is not the first academic honor Bosworth has earned at the University. He captured both the Koren Prize for the best junior-year academic record and the Combe Prize for the best junior independent work in the history department. Bosworth will focus his senior thesis on the evolution of former New York governor and U.S. vice president George Clinton's ideology on federal-state relations in the late 18th century. He will attend Yale Law School in the fall.
When Sommers was in second grade he had trouble adjusting to a new school. "I didn't want to get out of the car so I did what any second-grader would do and I grabbed onto the emergency brake," he said in his acceptance speech. "But luckily, since then, I have been able to go to school without too much kicking and screaming."
Sommers eventually did let go of the emergency brake and has accomplished much since second grade. A pre-medical English major with a certificate in Jewish studies, Sommers is a resident advisor in Butler College and a McCosh peer educator on sexual education.
He teaches Hebrew and Jewish studies at the Jewish Center in Princeton and Temple Beth-El in Somerville and was the director of staff for Princeton Model Congress in his sophomore and junior years.
"[Sommers] was a [Class of 1939] Scholar for achieving the highest academic standing for all four years," Shapiro said. "He takes a challenging schedule of his own design, receiving straight As in as many as six courses in one semester."
Sommers received As in five courses and on his junior paper last year and will now write his thesis on "the relationship between African-Americans and Jews in 20th century literature."
He said he hopes to pursue a joint MD-Ph.D. program in health care policy research after graduation.
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