Congratulations to these faculty and students who are shining in their fields:
Moot Court Champions
A team from Liberty University’s undergraduate Moot Court program under the Helms School of Government snatched first place at the 2021 American Moot Court Association (AMCA) National Tournament on Jan. 25.
Nationwide, 500 teams competed in regional tournaments in the fall, featuring arguments on First Amendment rights. The top 100 teams secured spots in the national tournament — including five of Liberty’s eight teams. The teams competed virtually and when the competition narrowed to 50 teams (four from Liberty) on day two, Liberty faced duos from Bentley University, the University of Southern California, and two lineups from Moot Court powerhouse Patrick Henry College before seniors David Korn (left) and Randall Shirey won against Colorado Christian University in the final round.
A Better Football Helmet
Dr. Mark Horstemeyer, dean of the School of Engineering, and his team of Ph.D. research fellows and undergraduate students have developed a football helmet that was named as the runner-up in their category of the NFL’s sixth-annual “1st and Future” pitch competition, created to spur innovation in athlete health, safety, and performance. Horstemeyer and his team, working in association with Genesis Helmets Inc., were awarded $25,000 to be used to continue their research and design.
The winners were announced Feb. 2 on the NFL Network, as part of Super Bowl LV Week in Tampa, Fla.
Using an approach called “Creationeering,” a term Liberty has trademarked, Horstemeyer and his team have incorporated properties found in the rack of bighorn sheep and the beak of a woodpecker to design a football helmet that he says is twice as effective at preventing concussions as those currently used by the NFL. The same principles used in the design can also be applied in other sports helmets, ranging from baseball and lacrosse to equestrian and hockey.
The team has been working out of Liberty’s Center for Engineering Research & Education and plans to submit an updated design into the NFL Helmet Challenge this summer for a chance to win up to a $1 million award.
Playwright Honors
A play by theatre arts graduate Victoria Zisi (’20) on undercover code-breakers during World War II was selected by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival as a first alternate for the David L. Shelton Playwriting Award, given to original plays written by students. Zisi is the first Liberty student to receive this honor and was recognized at a virtual ACTF Region IV Festival in February.
The play, “Blind to the Truth,” is based on the true story of “code girls,” whose pivotal role in history has only been declassified for a few years. Under the guise of secretaries in the United States Navy, these women worked to crack the code to German intel and encrypt Allied communications. Zisi researched and wrote the play as part of a playwriting course. A full dramatic reading of the play was given in the Tower Theater to the general public in February 2020.
Screenplay Finalist
Darin Wales, a professor in Liberty University’s Cinematic Arts, Zaki Gordon Center, was one of three finalists in the period/historical/war genre for his screenplay, “The Witch of Pungo,” in the Big Break Screenwriting Contest. His work was inspired by the true story of Grace Sherwood, a woman from Pungo (now part of Virginia Beach) who was wrongly accused of witchcraft by her neighbors in the early 1700s, close to the time of the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Sherwood was the only person to be convicted of such a thing in Virginia.
Wales began writing the script in 2011 while living in Virginia Beach. Since then, and during his time at Liberty (he began teaching at Liberty in 2015), Wales has slowly added and made rewrites to the script.
