The Polytropos Award is given to graduating seniors whose varied accomplishments and extraordinary service to the Core Curriculum merit the perhaps somewhat extravagant yet proleptically likely designation of "polytropos," the first adjective applied by Homer to the hero of his Odyssey. The award is given both in recognition of what a student has accomplished and in expectation of what he or she will accomplish, and in gratitude for ongoing mindfulness of the Core Curriculum. Each Polytropos recipient has helped the Core in areas such as tutoring and mentoring, classroom visits, phonathons, Freshman Fridays, Summer Advising, Open Houses, focus groups, presentations on Core and major concentrations, speaking about the Core with parents, reporters, and visitors, and help with the day-to-day functioning of the program.

The declaration of the award reads as follows:

In both recognition and expectation the faculty of the Core Curriculum honors the Odyssean virtues of this their graduating student. Recognizing that, throughout the junior and senior years at Boston University, it has been his or hers mindfully and resourcefully to venture, to see, to answer, and, with all these, courageously to remember and return; expecting in future years the continuation of these actions; expecting that, whether cyclopes dwell faroff or in many offices, whether Poseidon be calmed or much reamplified, yet the gray-eyed one will not long be absent from her or him; recognizing and expecting these things, the faculty hereby bestows the high honorific cognomen of Polytropos.

Congralutations to our 2009 winners:

Jonah Blustain

Amiel Bowers

Matthew Colangelo

Robyn Fialkow

Sarah Gazdowicz

Charles Howes

Danielle Isaacs

Andrew Kane

Courtney Miller

Jerome Turnbull

Click here to read about Polytropos honors awarded in previous years.