Principal’s Medal: Nicole Entin
Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Dame Sally Mapstone FRSE
Wednesday 12 June – morning ceremony
Today, the Principal’s Medal is being awarded to a truly outstanding student: Nicole Entin, who has just graduated with MA (Hons) Art History and English.
Nicole is a formidable scholar. She has excelled in her Art History and English modules since her first semester in St Andrews, consistently achieving first class marks, with most of her results being 18 out of 20 or above. As a result of her exceptionally strong academic performance, Nicole has collected an impressive number of academic prizes, including several class medals in Art History, English and Comparative Literature, and prizes for individual modules.
Moreover, Nicole has appeared on the Dean’s List for academic excellence in each year of her study and has already this year been a recipient of the Principal’s Scholarship for Academic Excellence, awarded annually to the fifty final-year students whose academic performances are the highest in their respective faculties.
During her time in St Andrews, Nicole was selected for a position in the two-year Laidlaw Leadership and Research Programme. Her research project, co-supervised by Art History and English, focused on Julia Margaret Cameron’s photography and Alfred Tennyson’s poetry. As a result of her research, Nicole produced an impressively learned and original essay, and her work was awarded Best Research Poster (Arts and Divinity) by the St Andrews Laidlaw Scholarship Programme.
According to her tutors, Nicole demonstrates exceptional ability and critical creativity in every aspect of her academic work. Her nominator writes that ‘Nicole is an outstanding writer; her critical prose is fluent, assured, well-researched, thought provoking, and thoroughly rewarding to read’. Several of her essays, spanning an impressive range of topics – from folk art and expressions of national identity in Central Europe to performance and the boundaries of social propriety in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice – have been published in the Arts and Divinity Faculty Journal.
Nicole’s excellence goes well beyond her academic achievements. She has been actively involved with a number of societies and has brought her creativity, passion, and intellectual acumen to fruition outside the classroom. She is a performer, playwright, poet, and theatre director with several staged productions and publications to her name.
Nicole has been a committed member of Gilbert and Sullivan: I think I first saw Nicole on stage in a performance of The Pirates of Penzance. She has also been heavily involved with student journalism, acting as deputy editor of the events section of The Saint and contributing reviews, opinion pieces, and other articles between 2021 and 2023.
Nicole is committed to broadening education, promoting accessibility to collections, and diversifying voices in the worlds of art and culture. As a Laidlaw Scholar, she reached out to local high schools and designed and delivered a very successful workshop with Madras College in a project of creative interpretation. As a follow-up to this initiative, Nicole curated an exhibition of posters based on the workshop in Martyrs Kirk. Further, as a Programme Assistant for Impact Arts, a Scottish non-profit organisation, she has guided young people with developmental challenges through the making and completion of art projects.
In October, Nicole will begin a Master of Studies in History of Art and Visual Culture at the University of Oxford. She has contributed significantly to the life of our University, embodying a model of excellence that is inspirational; I am sure that she will continue to do so in Oxford.
Nicole, in recognition of your many accomplishments both academically and personally during your time at St Andrews, it gives me great pleasure to bestow upon you the Principal’s Medal.