NICKY BELL MPS 2008

NICKY BELL

College of William and Mary

Williamsburg VA

International Relations

An outstanding member of the MPS Debate team, it is no surprise that as a student at William and Mary, Nicky has participated in the American Parliamentary Debate Association, competing against teams from around the country and qualifying for the national tournament as a freshman. Along with his debate experiences, he was elected as vice-president of the Residence Hall Association for his sophomore year after being honored as Representative of the Year as a freshman. Nicky also serves as a peer reviewer for articles submitted to the Monitor, the journal of international relations at the college. He works as a writing consultant in the Writing Resources Center. Last year he was inducted into the Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi Eta Sigma Honor Societies, and was one of 25 sophomores at the school selected for the Student Leadership Foundation. Nicky spent part of his spring break working with a Teach for America project in Charlotte, NC. As a recipient of a Monroe Scholarship from William and Mary, Nicky traveled to Spain last summer where he spent a week conducting interviews and visiting memorials to the Madrid train bombings in preparation for writing a paper on the relationship between the memorials and Spanish identity. Also during the summer, he worked as a research assistant for Professor Larry Evans, focusing on the Congressional Whip Count Project. he will present a paper with Prof. Evans at the Western Political Science Conference in April based on this work.

"Although I have only been in college for a year, I can already tell that the education I received at MPS has been instrumental in helping me achieve the success I have over the past year. The teachers at Mercyhurst challenged me to think critically about everything they presented me, and that is exactly the skill that college professors look for. Not only has this put me a step ahead of my peers in adjusting to the rigors of a college curriculum, but it has also created so many opportunities for me."

"I am very glad that I did the IB Diploma at MPS. The program taught me the skills I need to be a successful student at a competitive university...I found that my practice with IB, which forced me to go beyond superficial analysis...was allowing me to produce high quality papers. All of the other IB students I've met from across the US and the rest of the world had the same experience. However, I will say that speaking with other IB students has made me realize just how good the IB program at Mercyhurst really is."