Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert

Fifteen feet up in Gasson 305, calligrapher Grace Peters paints the name of Allen Best ’07, winner of the 2006 Fulton Prize Debate. Names on the wall date back to 1890, and Peters has painted every one since 1985, plus the winners from 1968–70 and 1979–84. Before climbing her ladder, Peters draws an outline of the winner’s name. In a three-ascent process, she traces it on the wall using carbon paper, and paints each letter half in red and then half in black. Peters’s favorite assignment? “Steven Bazyl,” the 1996 winner, she says, off-ladder: “I just had to stand on a table.”