Senior Anjali Nirmalan won this year's Wendell Phillips Award, an annual prize that will make her the only student to speak at May's Baccalaureate Commencement Ceremony.
The award recognizes a junior or senior of exceptional speaking ability and commitment to public service.
Nirmalan, the chair of Elections Commission for the 2008 calendar year, bested five other finalists for the award. Kevin Lownds, Courtney Mario, Sophia Michelen, Patrick Roath and Jessica Lynn Snow, all seniors, joined Nirmalan on Friday to present their speeches to the Committee on Student Life (CSL), which selected the award winner.
The Wendell Phillips Memorial Fund Association established the Wendell Phillips Award in 1896 as a tribute to Boston native Wendell Phillips, a preacher and abolitionist. The award also includes a small cash prize.
Each year the Office for Campus Life (OCL) presents the award to an upperclassman on the basis of public-speaking ability, and dedication to community service.
CSL Co-Chair Calvin Gidney, an associate professor of child development, said that this year's selection of seniors stood out. The deliberations on Friday afternoon, he said, took 90 minutes -- twice as long as he had expected them to.
"This year it was really a fantastic experience," Gidney said. "We had ... the largest number of applicants that we've had at least in the past five years since I've been on the committee and perhaps longer than that."
All six seniors were required to speak about an experience or new idea that caused them to re-evaluate something they had once taken for granted.
Nirmalan, who is also the education and advocacy chair for the Tufts Timmy Foundation, spoke about her experience growing up as the child of immigrants.
"It was a pretty personal speech," she said. "It advocated acknowledging rather than denying difficult and painful histories."
Gidney called the speech "beautifully delivered."
"I think a lot of people felt emotionally engaged about the topic and the way in which she delivered the speech," he said. "She had ... excellent speaking skills."
Nirmalan was also an organizer for the Dominican Art Exchange, a project that involved sending postcards between children in Somerville and the Dominican Republic. She has also emceed the annual Community Day.
Nirmalan, who is also a student at the Museum School, said that she has worked to make public service "an integral component of my involvement at both schools."
Nirmalan said that she was nervous about delivering the speech, especially as she had trouble sleeping on Thursday night and vomited before delivering her Friday speech. "I can't imagine what type of fits I'm going to have [before the Commencement speech]," she said.
Nirmalan has not yet made up her mind about the topic of her Commencement speech.
"I have no idea," she said. "I may be the one giving it, but it's for the Tufts community so I want it to be a community effort."
Wendell Phillips, born in 1811, dedicated his life to the abolition of slavery. He also championed civil rights causes including the treatment of Native Americans, women's suffrage and workers' rights. Phillips received his bachelor's degree in 1831 and his law degree in 1834 from Harvard. He died in 1884.
"The great thing about the award is that it empowers seniors to give speeches that are uncompromising because Wendell Phillips himself was a radical," Nirmalan said.
The rigorous application process for the award begins annually in November. The CSL invites the Tufts community to nominate noteworthy juniors and seniors at that time. Nominees are then invited to apply for the award.
Gidney attributed the higher interest in this year's award to the publicity efforts of Joe Golia, who this year assumed the position of director of the OCL.
"I think he's the reason that this event was such a success as compared to years past," Gidney said.
Carter Rogers contributed reporting to this article.
