Stephen J. Laut, S.J. Memorial Scholarship PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR

Stephen J. Laut, S.J. Memorial Scholarship
2015 Scholarship Competition Essay
Please answer the essay question below in a typed, double-spaced, formally constructed
essay of 750-1,000 words (roughly 3-4 pages with standard font-size and margins). Do not
create a separate title page; your name should appear on page one, and all subsequent pages
should be numbered. Be sure to staple or paper-clip your submission.
You are encouraged to write using concrete examples to support your thesis rather than
proceeding solely at the level of abstract argument, and you are encouraged to write what you
think about the topic, not what anyone else believes or what you think we might want to hear.
However, if you research to develop your essay, please document appropriately (MLA, APA,
Chicago footnote style) to credit intellectual property. Guard against errors in diction,
grammar, and spelling, which indicate a lack of seriousness in a potential scholar.
ESSAY QUESTION
For all the wide breadth and diversity of our planet, occasional crises reveal how
vulnerably small and interconnected we are. The heartbreaking toll the Ebola virus
has taken on the citizens of West Africa’s countries now threatens not only the rest
of that seemingly vast continent, but also other immense continents – Asia, Europe,
and of course the Americas, where in our own backyard Ebola has already arrived in
Dallas and New York, with other quarantines as near to Wheeling Jesuit’s campus as
in the neighboring state of Ohio. Ebola’s arrival in the United States traveled two
symbolically significant routes: carried here first from Liberia by a man seeking the
kind of care only a rich Western nation can provide, and then later from Guinea,
carried by one of the caregivers himself, who had been working to address the health
crisis at its source. Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post argues that “Africa’s
Ebola problem is now America’s Ebola problem,” but the example of Craig Spencer,
the young, idealistic doctor quarantined at New York’s Bellevue Hospital, suggests
some of our country’s citizens believed Ebola was America’s responsibility before the
virus ever reached our shores and became our “problem.” What is America’s
responsibility in the Ebola crisis – both to its own citizens and to our neighbors (as,
as this crisis has reminded us afresh, are much nearer than we sometimes think)?
Should the U.S. be doing a better job of protecting ourselves from irresponsibly
transmitted contagions, or should we be expanding the reach of our superior financial
and medical resources to offer relief to less advantaged peoples and nations?
PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR COMPLETED
ESSAY IN TWO FORMS:
1. Hard Copy (Postmarked by 1/9/15):
Prof. John W. Whitehead
Director, Honors Program
Wheeling Jesuit University
Wheeling, WV 26003
2. Electronic Copy (Sent by 1/9/15):
- Attach a Word file
- Email to:
lautscholarship@wju.edu
(We will acknowledge receipt of email submissions.)
Please direct all questions to Prof. John Whitehead, Director of the Honors Program:
1-800-624-6992, x2353; or email johnww@wju.edu