Three Mercer University students recently received the Best Student Project Award for their research project at the 2025 Gulf-South Summit.
Bekehm Mohn, a senior majoring in psychology, and Savannah French, a senior double-majoring in psychology and women’s and gender studies, led the project as part of their applied social justice certificate. Raven Dupree, a sophomore majoring in marketing, contributed significantly as a researcher.
The project details LGBTQ+ history and experiences at Mercer. It resulted in the students self-publishing two books, Hidden Threads: Intellect, Diversity and Religious Freedom and The Treatment of Us.
The students presented their project at the 2025 Gulf-South Summit, a conference that promotes service-learning and civic engagement, held March 26-28 in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Bekehm and Savannah have done something quite extraordinary for their applied social justice certificate,” said Dr. Natalie Bourdon, director of the certificate program and professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “I’m delighted that they received the Best Student Project Award at Gulf South Summit. It’s an award that was very well earned and the second year in a row that applied social justice students have won a top award at that conference. Our students are doing an amazing job.”
For the project, Mohn and French trained a group of undergraduate research collaborators who went through the Institutional Review Board process and were coached on in-depth, qualitative interview techniques, Bourdon said.
“Working in a collaborative research environment takes a lot of time and effort — getting schedules aligned, ensuring everyone stays on task and producing a uniformly excellent research result. Bekehm and Savannah have done just that,” she said.
Mohn started the project after noticing a lack of recognition for LGBTQ+ Mercerians past and present. The research study was designed to explore the complex historical events — including a “We Are Mercer Rally” held in support of the LGBTQ+ community — leading up to the University and Georgia Baptist Convention severing their longstanding relationship in 2006.
The researchers used materials stored in Mercer University Libraries. They also conducted interviews with faculty, staff, students, alumni and other influential figures from Mercer’s history.
Student participants — in addition to Mohn, French and Dupree — included Alyson Tidwell, Grey Morrison, Ren Schindler, Sydney Walker, Willow Crabtree and Reema Chande. Alumni Dr. G. Beth Sherouse and Stephania Lopez edited the books. University Archivist Daniel Williams provided research support.
Mohn, French and Dupree found out about their award while traveling back to Macon from the conference.
“I am still oozing with pride for my team, and (the award) validated all our long-term work, while acknowledging our beautiful community,” Mohn said.
