Jackson Foster, a native of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and Junior majoring in History and Religious Studies, has won the 2021 John Fraser Ramsey Award.

The Ramsey Award, named after former history professor John Fraser Ramsey, who taught in the Department of History for more than forty years. The award recognizes a “junior with the versatility of gifts and attainments, as well as the breadth of excellence in mind and character, that have traditionally been the goals of a liberal education,” and is considered among the university’s highest honors.

Foster is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Crimson Historical Review, a Randall Research Scholar, and a Blount Scholar. He recently completed a competitive internship with the National Endowment for the Humanities and has served as a research assistant on a major digital humanities project. He’s currently hard at work on an honors thesis investigating the legal history of early modern England.

The Ramsey Award comes with a $7,000 cash prize and an expenses-paid tour of Europe called the “Great Ideas Tour,” which is meant to commemorate Dr. Ramsey’s memorable Great Ideas of Western Civilization course.  Winners also enjoy a lifetime invitation to the annual Ramsey Award Banquet, where they help subsequent recipients plan their own “Great Ideas Tour.”

Foster is the fourth history major to receive the award in the past five years.