MKA Senior's History Thesis Selected for Publication in The Concord Review

Congratulations to MKA senior Lucy Randall, who will have the honor of seeing her junior class independent history thesis on "The Rise of Progressivism: Theodore Roosevelt as New York City Police Commissioner" published in the The Concord Review.  Founded in l987, this prestigious publication recognizes exemplary history essays by high school students in the English-speaking world, and is distributed to 42 states in the U.S. and in 35 countries around the world.

In examining Roosevelt's legacy, Randall, a National Merit Commended Scholar, conducted original research at his New York home in Oyster Bay and also at Harvard University, where she was able to solicit the help of archivist Wallace Dailey in looking through Roosevelt's papers.

Stemming from the MKA Upper School History Department’s concern that students were skimming through a modern American history syllabus with little opportunity to sufficiently reflect on or understand what they were being taught, the Junior History Research Project was introduced in 2004.  This alternative to the traditional American History AP course requires every member of the junior class to spend six months conducting independent, in-depth research, using both primary and secondary sources, into an aspect of American history, prior to writing 4300-word (minimum) thesis.

In the six years since the inception of this project, Randall is the fifth student from MKA to have their thesis published in the Concord Review.