KU News Release

English department presents awards, scholarships for 2009

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LAWRENCE — The Department of English at the University of Kansas recognized about 70 undergraduate and graduate students May 3 with more than $26,000 in awards and scholarships for outstanding academic performance, writing and teaching.

The English department recognized five graduate teaching assistants with Outstanding Instructor Awards: Heather Bastian, Gay Wynne Moore and Nate Williams, all of Lawrence; Stephanie Scurto of Oskaloosa; and Chloe Jones of Tonganoxie.

Ten seniors earned special departmental recognition this year: Jennifer Brusow, Abilene; Katy Basye, Hays; Michelle Lowenstein, Leavenworth; Matthew Gibson and Katie Wetzel, Manhattan; Zach Abramovitz, Overland Park; Thomas Hardy, Salina; Hannah Lowry, Topeka; Sarah Fettke, Wichita; and Robert Knapp, Spring, Texas.

The Student Association of Graduates in English presented Byron Caminero-Santangelo, associate professor, with its 2009 Mabel Fry Award for Outstanding Teaching in English.

Some of the oldest of the awards honor early 20th century English department faculty members. The Helen Rhoda Hoopes Scholarship Awards honor a KU faculty member who taught rhetoric and English from 1914 to 1947. The William Herbert Carruth Memorial Poetry Contest awards commemorate a teacher of German and English at KU from 1879 to 1913.

Among the more recently established awards and scholarships, the Merrill Award for Excellence in Teaching/Research was established in 1990 by Robin Spencer and Douglas Merrill of Phoenix, Ariz. Merrill was a KU honors graduate in English and humanities in 1975 and of the KU School of Medicine in 1978. Grant Goodman, professor emeritus of history, established the Grant K. Goodman Playwriting Award in 1993. The Robert Allen Maxwell Nature Writing Award was established in 2000 by Laurie Maxwell Tenney.

Awards for outstanding work in English literature or composition include the James A. Gowen Memorial Award, two James Bernard Kennedy Scholarships in English, three Kenneth Rockwell Scholarship Awards, the Dr. Anne Marie Turner Graduate Scholarship in American Literature and the Selden Lincoln Whitcomb Fellowship.

Additional awards for outstanding writing included the Victor Contoski Award for fiction and Victor Contoski Award for poetry, Ilus W. Davis Award for scholarly writing, James E. Gunn Award for science fiction writing, Thomas J. O’Donnell Nonfiction Award for creative nonfiction writing, the Technical Writing Award, the Henry Matthew Wiedner Awards and the Edgar Wolfe Creative Writing Award.

The Ana Damjanov Poetry Prize is offered through the Academy of American Poets.

Among other awards announced were the William Albrecht Memorial Scholarship, Peedee Brown Nontraditional Student Scholarship, Nancy Stockwell Scholarships for excellence in creative writing with emphasis on poetry or drama and the Patricia Cleary Miller Graduate Student Award.

KU Endowment manages the funds for the annual awards and scholarships presented by the English department. KU Endowment is the independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fundraising and fund-management organization for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.

Students who received English department honors are listed below by hometown, major, level in school, parents’ names, high school (when available) and award or scholarship. Students listed multiple times earned than one honor.

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