Meet the 2025-2026 McGlennon Scholars

The Government Department is proud to acknowledge the three winners of this year’s McGlennon Scholarships. The McGlennon Scholarship is designed to provide W&M students majoring in Government with funding to help enhance their undergraduate experience. This is typically done through research, a special course of study, or an honors project, which is why applicants are expected to describe how they will use the funds to enhance their education. The scholarship funding is distributed to both juniors and seniors. Students apply for and receive the scholarship in their junior year, then have it renewed their senior year.

Students with a 3.7 GPA or above are invited to apply. When applying, the whole of their academic performance, extracurricular activities, internships and community service, or other enriching activities are considered. Given this, the scholarships are extremely competitive. The three scholarships awarded this year went out to a set of enterprising juniors with a spread of interesting research ideas in both American and international politics.


Allen Baxter ’27 is a junior from Olney, MD. His intellectual interest revolves around civil rights and criminal justice in the United States. He intends to research how incarceration affects the rate of recidivism in the US. He is excited to put his scholarship funds to use to obtain and potentially craft data sets that are not easily available. Allen is partial to studying in the Chancellors Hall Lobby, and his favorite Government course at W&M has been Equal Protection of the Law with Professor Jackson Sasser.


Mona Garimella ’27 is a junior from Richmond, VA. Her involvement in student journalism and advocacy ignited her interest in how institutions can better serve citizens, as well as the intersection of policy and psychology. Using state-level data, she will study how restrictive voter ID laws can disproportionately affect political participation among minority and low-income voters. Mona loves to study wherever there’s natural light, which is often outside or lately in the ISC. Her favorite Government course, so far, was the Politics of Reproduction with Professor Claire McKinney.


Nicholas Valyayev ’27 is a junior from Trumbull, CT. He is interested in the dynamics of communist and post-communist regimes. He wants to research how economic vulnerability and civil society mobilization spur openness to trade in Vietnam. He intends to use his funds to visit the country for fieldwork and purchase materials to learn the language. Nicholas prefers studying in his dorm so he can take breaks but also enjoys Swem’s second floor and the study rooms in Chancellors. His favorite Government course has been Authoritarian Legacies with Professor Mark Deming.
 
Congratulations again to this year’s McGlennon Scholars! We wish them all the best with their endeavors and hope to see them at research panels or conferences in the near future!