Alumna wins honor for French scholarship and poetry

Kayla Burrell ’25 fell in love with France, and French, as a little girl, when her family lived for three years outside Paris in Louveciennes. When they moved back to Greenville, where Burrell was born, she continued taking French classes.

“I fell in love with studying literature and tying in cultural and linguistic identities into French literature,” she said recently from Rodez, in the south of France, where she works as an English teaching assistant. “I realized I’d be sad if I didn’t do this for the rest of my life.”

Burrell at a French school in Rodez, France, where she is an English teaching assistant.

Her passion for French and literature paid off this year when she won the 2025 Ulloa Prize from the Mountain Interstate Forum on Languages and Cultures (MIFLC) Review for an original poem she wrote in French and for an article she co-authored with Nathan Brown, associate professor of French. Burrell is the first undergraduate to win the award; previous recipients had already received doctorates.

The award “is far more than an affirmation of Kayla’s excellent work, this is a testimony to the transformative power of a Furman University education and a recognition that our students are some of the finest in the country,” Brown said.

Burrell had a passion for the language, reading a linguistics textbook for fun and to procrastinate other work, but she credits her Furman professors and mentors with encouraging her interests. “They shaped me into the writer I am now. They helped me build my confidence as a scholar and a poet.”

Mentorship started her first semester at Furman. Scott Henderson, professor of education, was her first-year advisor. Burrell was looking for someone to provide feedback on her poetry. Henderson, also a poet, volunteered. “Dr. Henderson’s willingness to help this new student looking for a mentor helped me feel more at home. People (obviously) cared about what I was doing and were willing to help me get better at it,” Burrell said.

Burrell became interested in translating French, which led to a summer research project with Brown. Burrell landed on a poet whose pen name was Renée Vivien, but whose father was British and mother was American. Her given name was Pauline Mary Tarn. In about 1898, when she was 21, she moved back to France, where her family had lived when she was young. She started publishing poetry in 1901 and published 12 collections before she died in 1909.

The research became a paper, “Clair-obscur: Shadows, Light, and Agency in the Lesbian Poetry of Renée Vivien.” The pair submitted it to the MIFLC Review with Burrell’s poem, “Figée,” alongside its English translation, “Immobile.” Brown received the Ulloa Prize at a conference in October on behalf of Burrell, who was in France.

Burrell also credits pre-professional experience she gained at Furman with her proficiency in French. She wrote other papers that were published, presented her paper and her poem at a conference, tutored fellow students and taught French to adults through a community program. Brown connected her with professional translators to learn more about their work.

“I think that’s a really special thing Furman has, giving students experiences that gives them an advantage,” Burrell said.

Burrell has applied to poetry MFA programs in the States. Until graduate school, she’ll continue to be an English teaching assistant with a French government program, going to nine different classrooms at an elementary and preschool, where children learn languages early. She works 12 hours a week, leaving time to immerse herself in the culture.