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Legacy
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What is Legacy?

Legacy refers to what individuals, institutions, cultures, and civilizations leave behind — the lasting impact of their actions, creations, and ideas on future generations. It appears across disciplines including history, political science, literature, music, architecture, and education, making it a genuinely cross-curricular subject. Students engage with it because it asks a fundamental question: how do the choices made in one era shape society today? The topic invites analysis of figures and institutions as varied as Roman civilization, Aristotle's philosophy of education, the Negro Baseball League, and architect I. M. Pei, grounding abstract ideas about influence in concrete historical and cultural cases.

The papers collected here approach legacy from several distinct angles. Historical analyses trace how past events and institutions — such as the Nineteenth Century's influence on the Great War or the enduring structures of Roman civilization — continue to resonate in contemporary life. Other essays take a biographical or cultural focus, examining how figures like John Coltrane or Sundiata shaped music and storytelling traditions. Some papers use case studies of specific organizations, such as the Girl Scouts or Smith and Wesson, to explore how institutional identity evolves over time. Reflective and policy-oriented approaches also appear, connecting personal development to broader historical and social legacies.

A strong essay on legacy stakes out a clear, arguable claim about why a particular inheritance matters and to whom. Evidence drawn from historical context, cultural impact, or documented outcomes carries the most weight. Writers should resist simply cataloguing achievements; instead, the analysis should explain the mechanisms by which influence transfers across time. The most common pitfall is treating legacy as uniformly positive — the strongest essays acknowledge tension, unintended consequences, or contested interpretations.

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Research Paper Doctorate

Comparing the reforms of Hammurabi and Akhenaten

The ancient histories of Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations have much in common. Both regions were inhabited since prehistoric times by nomadic groups, which began to settle down in towns and villages by around…

Research Paper Doctorate

The sugar trade and the rise of slavery in the Caribbean

Black slavery in the Antilles helped define Caribbean culture. Most people living in Haiti, Jamaica, and the smaller islands of the Caribbean are descended from these slaves, something that can't be said for most of the…

Research Paper Doctorate

Chile's history of colonization, military rule, and democratic recovery

Now one of the most prosperous nations in Latin America, Chile has undergone a series of traumatic transformations during the course of its lengthy history. Indigenous Chilean people have survived attacks from both…

Research Paper Doctorate

The Bakke decision and the Supreme Court's early challenge to affirmative action

The so-called Bakke decision was the earliest in which the United States Supreme Court addressed affirmative action. The case certainly did not mean and end to the issues involved, and there have been several attempts…

Paper Undergraduate

Improving Dunn School through community partnerships and engagement

No public school in the United States is so perfectly administered that is cannot be improved. Dunn School in Trenton, New Jersey, is certainly not close to being perfect but there are signs that the school is improving.

Essay Doctorate

Europe's reconstruction and transition from communism after 1945

The objective of this work in writing is to examine the challenges that Europe faced following World War II. This work will examine the fall of communism in 1991 and answer the question of how Europe has managed to transition away from communism. World War II left European countries in a critical state with many people displaced with no place to call home. People were out of work and were hungry, tired, and ready to put the events of World War II far behind them. The United States in assisting European countries with rebuilding their economies helped to set the base by which the European nations were able to make the break from Communism following the fall of Communism in 1991. Some European countries had already made the break and other countries were slower to do so.

Paper Doctorate

Race and the web: digital divides and online identity performance

This paper examines the presentation of 'race' and racial stereotypes online. During the early days of the Internet, it was argued that the anonymous nature of the online medium would herald an end to racial classifications and foster a post-racial society, at least virtually. However, concealment of identity has also led to the perpetuation of racist stereotypes. In fact, explicit self-identification with racial identifies may be more empowering and challenging for members of historically discriminated-against groups.

Research Paper Doctorate

Christian biotechnology as a tool for advancing Christ's mission

Christian Biotechnology: Not a Contradiction in Terms

Research Paper Doctorate

Franz Boas and Julian Steward's approaches to culture and environment

Franz Boaz defined the concept in anthropology, which is known by the name of "Historical Particularism." Boas was a champion of this theory, which, although it did not by any means totally ignore the greater…

Research Paper Doctorate

Should the United States government provide reparations for slavery?

Are Americans of African decent entitled to compensation for the American South's slavery past? Does the American government owe people whose ancestors were slaves reparations in the form of money, land or capitol goods?

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