Blount County’s Hailey Cartt receives prestigious LeQuire Award from Maryville College
April 9, 2024
Hailey Cartt, a senior Biochemistry major at Maryville College from Louisville, Tennessee, has been named the recipient of the prestigious LeQuire Award for the 2023-24 academic year.
Established in 1987 by descendants and friends of Maryville physician Granville Dexter LeQuire and his wife, Ellen Brickey LeQuire, the LeQuire Award includes a cash gift to help defray the expenses of applying to medical school and an engraved pewter julep cup.
Cartt, who will graduate in May from the 204-year-old college, was named winner of the award by College President Dr. Bryan F. Coker at the institution’s Celebration of Student Achievement ceremony held on Friday, April 5, at the Clayton Center for the Arts. The recipient of the LeQuire Award is selected each year from among the graduating class by the College president. Students are nominated by faculty members from the Humanities and Natural Sciences divisions.
Cartt, who graduated from Bearden High School in Knoxville, Tennessee, plans to take a gap year to get established in the medical field before applying for admission to medical schools in the fall of 2025. At Maryville College, she’ll complete a minor in both Psychology and Health and Wellness Promotion and is a member of the Maryville College women’s soccer team, which finished 15-4-3 last fall, winning the Collegiate Conference of the South (CCS) championship and earned a first-round berth in the NCAA Division III tournament, ultimately falling to Washington University. For excellence in her final season, Cartt was named to the All-CCS First Team, as the CCS Defensive Player of the Year, to the United Soccer Coaches All-Region Second Team, and as a member of the College Sports Commununicators Academic All-District and All-America teams.
Off the field, she’s the recipient of a McGill Fellowship, which recognizes the academic accomplishments and leadership abilities of 20 students with a scholarship of $30,000, renewable annually, and is a member of the Scots Science Scholars, a four-year program that provides financial aid and academic enrichment and support for select students who are interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) fields. In addition, she’s repeatedly made the Dean’s List, and was awarded the Outstanding Performance in General Chemistry honor at the College’s 2021 Academic Achievement Awards ceremony. In her spare time, she serves as a Sunday School teacher at New Providence Presbyterian Church in Maryville.
In announcing Cartt as the winner, MC President Dr. Bryan Coker pointed out that “her advisor and other faculty in the Natural Sciences Division remark that she is one of the top students in their classes, and that her approach to both her coursework and her lab work are stellar. Most significantly, her work on her Senior Study, which has been recognized by the Division of Natural Sciences as Exemplary, has brought her passion for science, medicine and sports together.”
Assisted by her advisor, Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr. Nathan Duncan, Cartt’s Senior Study — a centerpiece of the MC experience in which every degree candidate works with a faculty supervisor to expound upon scholarship and ideas in their respective degree fields — was titled “Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Appalachian Cherokee National Tribe Medicinal Plants as COX-2 Inhibitors,” which examines the efficacy of Native American herbal medicine, specifically those used by the Cherokee people indigenous to East Tennessee and Western North Carolina, as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
In addition to the LeQuire Award at the April 5 Celebration of Student Achievement, Cartt was also recognized as one of five recipients of the Liberal Arts Award, given to graduating seniors who have earned the highest grade point averages in all core courses taken at Maryville College. In nominating her for the LeQuire Award, Coker added, Duncan emphasized how her accomplishments throughout her undergraduate career live up to the MC ideals of scholarship, respect, integrity and a desire to “do good on the largest possible scale.”
“[Dr. Duncan] has no doubts she will be accepted to medical school, and he has no doubts that she will continue to be the kind of person he has seen her become at Maryville College, and will represent us well,” Coker said.
