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Magogodi Makhene may be the best writer who ever walked the Neumann campus. In the past year, the junior has won two national writing competitions: the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics and the Delta Epsilon Sigma scholarly writing award.
Her essay “The Ethics of South African Identity” won the Elie Wiesel Prize from among hundreds of submissions solicited by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity in New York City. Her research paper, “One Vote, One Rand?: Addressing the Question of Black Economic Empowerment in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” took first place in the competition sponsored by the national Catholic Honor Society.
The Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics is an annual essay competition designed to challenge college students to analyze the urgent ethical issues confronting them in today's complex world. Students are encouraged to write thought-provoking personal essays that raise questions, single out issues and provide rational arguments for ethical action. All submissions to the essay contest are judged anonymously by a jury that includes Elie Wiesel. The second- and third-place winners this year are from the University of Texas and Boston College.
Makhene, a junior majoring in international business, is 24 and a native of Johannesburg, South Africa. She came to America in 1999 as a foreign exchange student. After graduating from high school in California, she attended college in Minnesota for a year but craved a more diverse environment and proximity to the culture that a city offers. She has enjoyed her time at Neumann, explaining that “Its smallness has worked in my favor. It has been a nurturing environment for my intellectual development.”
Her prize-winning essay is about growing up in South Africa and the sacrifices that people there had to make in order to become what Nelson Mandela has called “the rainbow nation.” Her scholarly paper is about the redistribution of wealth in South Africa. She believes that the government supports progressive policies but that those policies are “not having an impact on the average person.”
Makhene recently completed a semester abroad at St. Louis University in Madrid. She will return to Neumann in the fall and hopes to graduate in December. Her plans after graduation seem as fluid as her writing style. She admits a strong interest in social entrepreneurial ventures and, at the same time, an affinity for research and writing about the financial services sector.
6/26/07
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