Peyton Scholarship helps pave way for Collins

Chelsey Alanna Collins never imagined the opportunities available to her through education.

Collins believed financial concerns would limit her ability to pursue a college degree. But the encouragement and guidance of multiple educators, including two Mississippi University for Women professors, helped the Meridian native to broaden her horizons across the Atlantic Ocean.

Collins, who majored in history (minor in Medieval & Renaissance Studies) at The W, used the Centennial Award from the Gordy Honors College and the Peyton Scholarship to help her build a résumé so she could apply for and receive additional funding in her graduate studies. As a result, Collins received a full scholarship to pursue a master’s degree at National University of Ireland Maynooth. She also recently learned she will be fully funded for her doctorate through the National University of Ireland Maynooth’s John Hume Doctoral Award.

“When I was awarded the (Peyton) scholarship, I felt extremely grateful to be able to take the year of study in Ireland that I felt would be really important to my education, without the added financial pressure of loans,” Collins said. “It felt like a weight off my shoulders, and I was able to focus on my study and make the most of the opportunity. I am very grateful to both of my former professors for encouraging me to apply for the scholarship.”

Collins said she heard about The W from Ben Alexander, her history teacher at Northeast Lauderdale High School. She said Alexander, who graduated from The W, encouraged her to go to college and to pursue History. Collins also said that Alexander without her knowledge paid for her to take the Advanced Placement History tests that she otherwise would not financially have been able to take.

“His generosity and encouragement are the reasons I was able to go to college,” Collins said.

Collins received similar assistance when she arrived at The W. She said the Centennial Award paid for her fees and allowed her to pursue her history degree. She said Drs. Amber Handy and Erin Kempker “strongly encouraged” her to apply for the Peyton Scholarship. She had been planning to study abroad for a year before she heard about the Peyton Scholarship, and that she felt strongly enough about doing it that she had been planning to fund herself through student loans.

The Peyton Scholarship was created in October 2014 when Ann Coleman Peyton, granddaughter of The W founding mother Annie Coleman Peyton, provided a bequest gift of $2.2 million to support scholarships for history students at the school. The Mary Lou Peyton Scholarship is awarded to qualified students majoring in history. The scholarship funds may be used to help cover expenses for history majors who are participating in internship programs or The W’s study-abroad program. If in a given year, the funds available to be awarded exceed the scholarship needs of history majors, the scholarship may be used to support students whose course of study includes a substantial history component.

History majors can receive up to $10,000 per year to use toward tuition, which is renewable for up to four years. They also can receive up to $5,000 to study abroad or for local, national or international history internships.

“The sky was the limit for Chelsey, but she just had no money,” said Kempker, a professor of history and the chair of The W’s Department of History, Political Science & Geography.

Kempker said students at other universities with limited means like Collins usually don’t get opportunities to study abroad. Kempker said that is different at The W, which is why she is trying to increase awareness about the availability of the Peyton Scholarship. She said more than 20 people have received Peyton Scholarship money, and that there have been more than 30 awards since the first scholarships were awarded in 2016.

Collins said majoring in history introduced her to different areas of the field, and the special topics courses helped show her how she might specialize into thematic studies of different eras, which is how she was introduced to medieval history.

“She is going to be one of the best scholars in this field,” Kempker said.

“That’s what we want to be every day for everybody, and we did it for Chelsey. She got everything she wanted out of that. The study abroad gave her the time to go to Ireland to really experience those primary sources to get a feel for what graduate school would be like, and to definitely answer for herself that is what I want. She came back knowing what she wanted to do.”

Handy, an associate professor of history and the Director of the Kossen Center for Teaching and Learning at The W, also served as an academic adviser for Collins. She said the year Collins spent at National University of Ireland Maynooth was “pivotal” to help her determine the next steps in her career path.

“That year abroad allowed her to see what might be possible if she chose medieval history rather than American history and allowed her to make a better informed choice of which field she truly wanted to pursue in her graduate studies,” Handy said. “Spending the year in Ireland allowed her to immerse herself in another culture and in a field of study that simply wouldn’t have been possible here in the U.S., and it was clear to me from our conversations after her return that the experience not only broadened her worldview but also raised her excitement about her chosen field of student to an entirely new level.”

Collins is completing her master’s degree and then will have four years of doctoral study at Maynooth University. She said she plans to publish some of her research. This past year, she said she has been studying one perspective of medieval sexuality in how illegitimacy was defined in Irish law and literature. She also said she has been working with other scholars to translate a law-text on illegitimate sons, called Bretha for Macslechta (Judgements on Categories of Sons), which she hopes to publish on completion. After her doctorate, Collins intends to publish a book on several different approaches to sexuality in medieval Ireland. She also is interested in designing educational programming and activities, initially in university classrooms and maybe eventually for use in tourism and public history. None of those things would have been possible if Collins didn’t receive the help and encouragement from educators and reap the rewards from the Centennial Award and the Peyton Scholarship.

“Studying in another country is not very different to studying at home in that you will have many of the same deadlines and stresses, but what makes it worth pursuing is that it can make the rest of the world more accessible, and it can open up a whole new area of opportunities,” Collins said. “The scholarship gave me a major head start in helping set me on a path for postgraduate study and hopefully a career in my area. I loved attending The W and felt well supported by my community but wanted to be challenged with entirely new coursework and got extremely lucky to be able to come to Ireland and experience the program at Maynooth University.

“The incredible instructor for the medieval Irish gender and sexuality course, Dr. Elizabeth Boyle, now supervises my doctoral work at Maynooth, and I met fellow students from Ireland and across Europe who shared their interests and introduced me to topics I have never considered, like religious violence and medieval cognition. Meeting people completely different from yourself, exchanging ideas and having the opportunity to focus on a topic you love make it worth it, and I would encourage anyone to apply for the Peyton Scholarship because it is an excellent opportunity on which to build your education.”

Kempker encourages more students to take advantage of the Peyton Scholarship. She said students have traveled to Ireland, Spain, Cuba, Finland and other countries to further their education. She said students don’t need to have a certain grade-point average to apply for the scholarship. Kempker also doesn’t want students to feel like they might not fit the bill as someone who would be considered to travel abroad.

“History is not GPA driven, and we have almost no prerequisites to take our courses. What makes a successful History student is anyone with intellectual curiosity about the world. That is why we are so committed to study abroad because they go together. If you are curious about the world, you need to get out there and experience it.

“Don’t be put off by people who say, ‘history? What are you going to do with that?’ I know we are getting a lot of students who self-edit and they may really like history but it doesn’t seem like a real major for them, but what I hope the Peyton Scholarship at least allows students to do is to recognize there are real opportunities in history, and that by being a history major once they get in the door I know we will help them figure out there are lots of things you can do with a history major. Employers love history as a major, so I am not worried about getting them ready to do whatever it is they want to do next. I think we just have to overcome that initial hesitation and anxiety. I hope people see with Chelsey is you can build it out of this experience.”

For more information, please contact Kempker at emkempker@muw.edu, or call her at (662) 329-7386.