Each Spring, the College of Arts & Sciences accepts nominations for its annual Alumni Awards for Writing Excellence. This year alumni donors will recognize four outstanding student writing projects and their writers: two in the Humanities, one in the Natural Sciences, and one in the Social Sciences. Awards are $500 each.
Students may nominate themselves, with the endorsement of a CAS faculty member. Faculty members are also encouraged to nominate their best student writers. Criteria for submission of written work are as follows:
- Writing projects must be the work of CAS graduating seniors, written during either the junior or senior year for a CAS course or for Work for Distinction.
- Work written by two students is eligible, as long as research and writing were shared equally between the authors. Writing projects co-authored with graduate students or faculty members cannot be considered.
- The full range of expository, analytical, and researched writing, including chapters of Work for Distinction projects, may be submitted for consideration. Works of creative writing cannot be considered.
- Writing that is in a language other than English should include an English translation by the writer.
- Submissions will be judged on the quality of the arguments and prose style and the command of the rhetorical situation.
- Submissions should represent significant work, consisting of 3,000-10,000 words. Excerpts from longer works, such as a Work for Distinction, are acceptable and should include an abstract.
- Unless otherwise directed by the nominee, judges will read the first 10,000 words for any longer works, in order to make their judgments.
- A student may not be nominated for more than one paper per division.
If you are a student submitting your own work, you must first obtain your faculty sponsor’s statement in support of this submission before completing the submission process. Your faculty sponsor is the professor of the class in which you did this writing project. Once you have secured your professor’s statement, you may complete a submission form (see below) and upload both your written project and your faculty sponsor’s statement. Please note that although you are asked to indicate which division (Humanities, Social Sciences, or Natural Sciences) you consider your paper, the Writing Program may in certain cases reclassify submissions.
If you are a faculty member providing a sponsor statement for an applicant, please click here for advice.
Final decisions will be made by a committee of Writing Program faculty members. Winners will be recognized at the CAS Awards & Recognition Ceremony on Friday, May 17, 2024 from 2:00-3:30 at the Tsai Performance Center.
The deadline to submit a paper for consideration in this year’s competition is Thursday, April 18, by 5 p.m. Given the complexities of planning the CAS Awards and Recognition Ceremony, the program must adhere to this deadline and will not be able to consider papers received after 5 p.m. on the 20th.
The deadline to submit a paper for consideration in this year's competition has passed.