Awards and Scholarships

The English Department seeks to encourage remarkable achievements throughout the year, but officially recognizes its outstanding students at the end of Spring semester during the Awards Ceremony. Listed below are the awards granted during the past few years, several of which are not given every year; some include monetary awards, while others do not.

In addition to these opportunities, the department's Graduate Student Advisory Board and the university's Office of Research and Sponsored Programs offers travel and research grants. All scholarships and awards are given to deserving and promising students at the discretion of the department, and will be awarded without regard to race, sex, religion, color, national origin, physical or mental handicap, age, or status as a Vietnam era veteran.

• Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award
• Distinguished Master's Thesis Award
• University Graduate Fellowships
• Creative Arts and Research Graduate Awards
• Frances Mayhew Rippy Scholarship
• Dr. Janet Ross Scholarship
• Voss Scholarship

Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award

2007: Dr. Fred Johnson, “Net Work: Social Networks, Disruptive Agency, and Innovation in Howells, Fitzgerald, Heller, Pynchon, and Gibson.”

2006: Dr. Carmen Siering, “Rhetorical Vision: Resistance, Fantasy, and the Work of Texts in Creating and Sustaining Subculture"

2004: Dr. Luz Rincon, "Middle-Class Spanish of the City of Bucaramanga, Columbia"

2003: Dr. Carolyn Goffman, “`More Than the Conversion of Souls’: Rhetoric and Ideology at the American College for Girls, Istanbul, 1871-1923”

Distinguished Master's Thesis Award

2004: Doyle Haessler

University Graduate Fellowships

Recipients for 2007-2008

• Kathleen Champlin
• Stephen Jones

Recipients for 2005

• Heidi Skurat Harris
• Aaron Housholder
• Shu Ping Nall
• Timothy Nall
• Daneryl Nier-Weber
• Yuli Wang

Recipients for 2004

• Amber Buck
• Carrie Conley
• Jamie Mellen

Creative Arts and Research Graduate Awards

Recipients for 2004

• Fahad Alqurashi
• Ali Bogun
• Shizuko Ozaki
• Theodore Plothe

Frances Mayhew Rippy Scholarship

The Frances Mayhew Rippy Scholarship assists outstanding graduate students majoring in literature in English. The scholarship supports such expenses as tuition, books, research materials, and travel to conferences and research collections.

• Rippy Scholarship Application (pdf)

Recipients for 2008

• Jill Leisgang
• Corby Roberson

Recipients for 2007

• Aaron Householder
• Patricia Leaf
• Murray Montague

Dr. Janet Ross Scholarship

Application deadline: March 17, 2008

The Dr. Janet Ross Scholarship for Teachers of English as a Second Language is a merit award. The amount may be divided among several students, if so recommended by the selection committee. The recipient must be enrolled in one of the following programs: Teaching Major in English/Language Arts in combination with English as a Second Language Licensure Program; M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL); or M.A. in Linguistics and TESOL. The recipient shall display those characteristics of scholarship, character, and leadership which, in the judgment of the selection committee, are considered essential for success in the field of teaching English as a second language.

• Dr. Janet Ross Scholarship application (pdf)

Recipients for 2008

• Kathleen Ulrey
• Karen Broo

Voss Scholarship

Any M.A. or Ph.D. student in literature is eligible for this award, intended to support applied or theoretical research in literature. This research does not need to be connected to the research or creative project, the thesis, or the dissertation.

• Voss Scholarship description and application (pdf)

Recipients for 2008

• Nathan Myers
• Stephen Jones

Recipients for 2007

• Heidi Skurat Harris
• Andrea Powell Jenkins
• Rebecca Norman

Recipients for 2006

• Rachel Baumgardner
• Abigail Comber

Recipient for 2005

• Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick

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