Department of English Scholarship and Writing Awards

Department of English

Scholarship and Writing Awards

The Department of English was pleased to honor undergraduate and graduate student award winners, as well as graduating seniors and recent B.A.’s, at its annual Award Ceremony on April 21, 2017.  The awards and scholarships, which mean so much to the students who receive them, are made possible only by the generosity of our donors.  A few were in attendance: Kathleen Connor; the Goldsmith family, Marion Ringe, and alumna Joanne Cantoni (B.A. 1969).

The student speaker for the afternoon was Aaron Proudfoot, who graduates with an English Honors BA this year.  He plans to enter the PhD program at the University of Connecticut in the fall.

To see more pictures from our event, visit our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/WayneStateEnglish/

Creative Writing Awards & Scholarships

Judith Siegel Pearson Award

First Place:  Kamelya Youssef, “Holding You in my Mouth”

Second Place: Ariel Mokdad, “Body Studies: Arabets”

Phillip Lawson Hatch, Jr. Memorial Award

First Place: Kamelya Youssef, “Five Poems”

Second Place: Ariel Mokdad, "Body Studies: Arabets”

Honorable Mentions: Nushrat Rahman, “Old Detroit Dirt”; Tiara Amani, “Rewritten”

 John Clare Award in Poetry

First Place: Alexandra Biedenbach, "Wrong Doing"

Second Place: Kamelya Youssef, "Five Poems"

Honorable Mention: Joseph Martinez, “Behind Closed Eyes”; Kelly Toal, “When I Don't Have the Words”

Tompkins Award (Nonfiction)

First Place: Connor Newton, "Holding On"

Second Place: Joseph Martinez, "Strip"

Honorable Mentions: Sara Jayyousi, "Visiting Hours"; Shannon Stecker, “My Sister’s Keeper”

Tompkins Award (Fiction)

First Place: Timothy Thomas, "Kansas City"

Second Place: Sara Jayyousi, “Empty Bottles Clinking”

Honorable Mentions: Lesley Stanley, "Rescue"; Manal Nizam, "Monsoon Season"

Tompkins Award (Drama)

First Place: Mary Grahame Hunter, "The Very Witching Time"

Second Place: Sara Jayyousi, "[his name here]"

Tompkins Award (Poetry)

First Place: Tiara Amani, “The Order of Things”

Second Place: Julia Hill, "This is Me Right Now"

Honorable Mentions:  Angelia Buckingham (a.k.a. T. Dwella), "Nature's Ways"

The Christopher T. Leland Endowed Scholarship in Creative Writing

Stephen Snyder

The Loughead-Eldredge Endowed Scholarship in Creative Writing

Joseph Jordan; Connor Newton; Kamelya Youssef

The Stephen H. Tudor Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing

Sara Jayyousi

Undergraduate Scholarships & Awards

The Joseph J. & Mary E. Yelda Endowed Merit Scholarship for English

Joseph Clawson; Rachel Hackett; Matthew Jewel; Victoria Knight; Ki Lee O’Brien; Nushrat Rahman; Sasha Strait

The Gilbert R. & Patricia K. Davis Endowed Merit Scholarship

Lynette Lenk

The Marion K. Ringe Endowed Scholarship

Norbert Daniels

The Dustin Rose Memorial Scholarship

Julia Hill

Phi Beta Kappa

Sheryll Janine Blaschak; Lujine A. Nasralla

Best Essay Award

Connor Newton, “’I Couldn’t Help Seeing’: Overcoming Dystopia in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower”

Distinguished Graduating Senior Award

Megha Krishnan

Service Achievement Award

Sara Jayyousi

Graduate and Combined Scholarships

The Thomas R. Jasina Endowed Graduate Scholarship in English

Nina Teal

The Terrance King Endowed Memorial Fellowship in English

Catherine Donaldson; Tara Forbes

The Albert Feigenson Scholarship

Undergraduate: Anna Petranovic

Graduate Student: Hassan Abbas

The Professor Arnold Goldsmith Annual Scholarship

Catherine Donaldson

The Dennis Turner Memorial Scholarship in Film Studies

Peter Marra; Lacey Skorepa

The Doretta Burke Sheill Endowed Memorial Scholarship

Undergraduates: Sallwa Assarawie; Olivia Johnson; Steven Proudfoot; Amal Rass

Graduate Students: Jeanette Anesi; Shelby Cadwell; Peter Marra; Lujine Nasralla; David Nowak; Ella Tucan

The Pearl A. Warn Endowed Scholarship in English

Undergraduate: Leah O’Donnell

Graduate Student: Sheryll (Jan) Blaschak

Graduating senior Aaron Proudfoot received a standing ovation for his speech about the English community.

Recipients of the 2017 Joseph & Mary E. Yelda Scholarship include (from left to right) Sasha Strait, Ki Lee O'Brien, Victoria Knight, Rachel Hackett, and Matthew Jewel. Not pictured: Joseph Clawson.

Faculty are always happy to see their students win awards. From left to right: Professor Lisa Maruca; BA/MA student Jan Blaschak, recipient of the Pearl A. Warn Endowed Scholarship; BA/MA student Lujine Nasralla, recipient of the Doretta Burke Sheill Endowed Memorial Scholarship; and Professor Simone Chess.  Jan and Lujine were also invited to become members of Phi Beta Kappa.

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