Lunsford Honorees: Fall 2020
About the Fall 2020 Lunsford Honorees
From Spring 2020 through Summer 2021, all PWR 2 courses were taught online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Typically, Lunsford award honorees would present in front of a live audience and two winners would be selected. Giving and recording an oral presentation in an online environment provided both new challenges but also new possibilities and we saw a range of creative and powerful responses to oral presentation research. This gallery represents exemplary work from students produced in their fully online environments during Fall quarter 2020, and we honor all of these students for their excellent research and delivery.
Watch highlights from the Fall honoree presentations -- with an introduction by former PWR Faculty Director, Andrea Lunsford -- and then scroll down for access to their full presentations.
Lunsford Honorees for Fall 2020

Eva Batelaan: “Missed Connections: Reexamining Sexual Assault Perspectives"
Course: The Rhetoric of the Natural and Beyond
Instructor: Raechel Lee
Ismael Isidro Castro: “Tech 'Diversity': How Anti-Affirmative Action Rhetoric Perpetuates Tech's Diversity Problem"
Course: The Rhetoric of Language, Identity, and Power
Instructor: Jennifer Johnson
Calico Ducheneaux: “Quest for Online Education Reform"
Course: Rhetoric of Distraction
Instructor: Chris Kamrath
Marcus Floyd: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly behind Pop-Culture Appropriation"
Course: Hiphop, Orality, and Language Diversity
Instructor: Tessa Brown
Murtaza Hassan: “The influential Minority Myth and What It Can Tell Us About Sectarian Conflict in Pakistan"
Course: A Rebel with a Cause: The Rhetoric of Giving a Damn
Instructor: Kathleen Tarr
Arushi Gupta “Breaking the Spell: Behind Stanford's Quiet Takeover of the Bay"
Course: Active Research: Making Time for Social Justice
Instructor: Donna Hunter
Ben Hu: “If You Give a Kid Some Representation: How Picture Books Depict Asian Americans"
Course: Once Upon a Cause: Producing Picture Books for Local Children
Instructor: Erik Ellis
Sydnee Huff: “Aswang and Filipino Identities: How Filipinos Can Use Storytelling as a Catalyst for Decolonization"
Course: Makers, Crafters, Hackers: The Rhetoric of DIY
Instructor: Angela Becerra Vidergar
Ashley Jepson: “Whiplash"
Course: The Rhetoric of Film Criticism
Instructor: Alex Greenhough
Sarah Kim: “Is J.K. Rowling a Racist? A Critical Examination of Tokenism in Harry Potter"
Course: Curated Reality: How Media Shape What We Know
Instructor: John Peterson
Rellie Liu: “Bury Away the Despondency: The Roots and Shoots of China's New 'Funeral' Culture"
Course: All the Feels: The Rhetoric of Emotion
Instructor: Tesla Schaeffer
Aisling Murran: “There is No Ancient Greek Word for Ownership (But That Certainly Didn't Stop Them)"
Course: Copying, Memeing, Modding, and Pirating: Rhetorics of (Un)Originality
Instructor: Eldon Pei