The delivery and defense of a senior thesis is an important milestone in a student’s education at Westminster Academy. It is a comprehensive and integrative project that requires students to use the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired throughout their education at WA to craft a thoughtful and persuasive argument on a chosen topic. This is an opportunity for students to publicly demonstrate how much they’ve learned about research, reasoning, and rhetoric. The thesis topics represent a wide array of interests, but they all address an issue of depth and significance.

Topics this year include:

• Ronald Reagan: A Model of Effective Foreign Policy
• Uncomfortably Numb: The Hidden Downsides to Antidepressants
• Has the Land of the Free become the Land of the Incarcerated?
• GMOs and the Threat to American Farming
• The Purpose of Sex: Weighing the Cultural Definition against the Biblical Standard
• The Japanese Imperial Threat during the Second World War
• Standardized Tests: Does One Size Really Fit All?
• The New Tolerance: Destruction Through Deception
• Loving the Least of These: The Church’s Fight Against Poverty
• Sexism is Not Sexy: The Flaw of the American Sports Industry
• The Loss of Beauty in the Modern Portrayal of Women
• For the Sake of the Living & the Dead: Just War Theory and the Atomic Bombing of Japan
• Nature, Nurture, or Neither: The Origins of Criminal Behavior
• The Hero We Deserve: A Study of American Mythology
• A Conception of God’s Plan for Pregnancy
• The Importance of Coaching: More Than Wins and Loses
• Does Anyone Care If I Use the Wrong Fork?
• The Relevance of Design
• The Need for Christian Community in Life’s Biggest Transition
• Diagnosing an American Problem: Are Mammograms a Worthy Investment?
• Smartphones Can be a Dumb Decision
• “Would you like a diploma with that?” – Why Students Should Work During Education
• Social Media: A Positive Outlook for an Involved Generation

New this year!

The top three speeches, as selected by the Capstone instructors, will present in a public event on Thursday, May 14 at 7:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary. Please join us to hear these seniors and find out who will win the John and Day Hodges Rhetoric Award for 2014-2015. Afterwards, there will be a brief reception for the presenters and attendees.