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Grand Rapids, Mich. - Aquinas philosophy student and Grand Rapids, Mich. native, Benjamin Stitt, received the Earhart Emerging Scholar grant. The Michigan Colleges Foundation presented the $725 grant to Stitt for use towards funding his philosophy project titled Changing Definitions of Basic Human Rights: Does Society Have an Obligation to Provide? His project, which will be conducted this summer, will be supervised by Bryan C. Pilkington, Ph.D., assistant professor of philosophy at Aquinas.

Stitt will focus his project on the evolution of human rights and how it is related to today’s society.

“There was a time when human rights were simple in their definition, but no more,” said Stitt in his grant application. “We, as a society, are refining what basic human rights are.”

The Earhart Emerging Scholars grant is awarded to junior or senior students conducting undergraduate research in anthropology, communications and journalism, economics, history, language, philosophy, political science, religion and theology, or sociology.