UT Tyler Honors College Senior Nationally Published in Academic Journal

November 20, 2025 | Hannah Buchanan

Nixon Gorka of Athens, an honors student and senior history major at The University of Texas at Tyler, wrote an award-winning paper that was recently published in “The Windmill” –– the academic journal of the Great Plains Honors Council.

Gorka received a 2025 Dennis Boe Paper Award for her work, “The Last Penumbra of Empire: Imperialism and the British Foreign Intelligence Service,” during the annual GPHC conference by faculty judges. The award recognizes outstanding scholarly writing by the students of its member institutions in the region, which covers Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska and Missouri.

“We are so proud of Nixon. It is a great accomplishment to publish an academic paper as an undergraduate, and we know that Nixon’s success is a sign of things to come,” said Dr. Paul Streufert, UT Tyler professor and Honors College founding dean.

The paper can be found online.

A 2025 history scholar in the UT Tyler College of Arts and Sciences, Gorka will graduate next May with a bachelor’s degree. Upon graduation, she plans to pursue graduate studies.

Coordinating its activities with the National Collegiate Honors Council, the Great Plains organization promotes the flow of information, ideas, fellowship and professional encouragement throughout its member programs. To learn more, visit: greatplainshonors.com/.

With a mission to improve educational and health care outcomes for East Texas and beyond, UT Tyler offers more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs to more than 11,500 students. Through its alignment with UT Tyler Health Science Center and UT Health East Texas, UT Tyler has unified these entities to serve Texas with quality education, cutting-edge research and excellent patient care. Classified by Carnegie as a doctoral research institution and by U.S. News & World Report as a national university, UT Tyler has campuses in Tyler, Longview, Palestine and Houston.