The Women's Studies Program offers a prestigious Writing Award each year. The winning essay is chosen in a blind competition: two faculty readers from widely different fields read all the submissions, which can come from any field as long as they have a Women's Studies focus in either subject or methodology. We usually have a substantial and stong field of contenders for the $100 prize.

Some recent winners of the Women's Studies Writing Award include:

 Laura Kay, 2010
"Not a Woman, But a FANY:  Appropriations of Gender in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry During the Great War"

Erin Gorman, 2009 
"Heloise as Author:  A Historiographical Examination"

Heather Roscow, 2008 
"Excerpts from the Diary of Sofinisba Anguissola"

Andrea Ipjian, 2007
"Christine de Pizan:  A Visionary for Women"

Alison Davis, 2006
" Approaching Eliot's Adam Bebe From Two Moral Perspectives"

Jenny Burns, 2004 and 2005 Recipient

"Pious vs Holy:  The Relationships and Differences between the Lives of Laywomen and the Lives of Female Saints that Depict the Evolution of Sancitity in Byzantium"

Alaina Carroll, 2003 
"The Indispensable Pre-Modern Woman"

Annie Wagganer, 2002 
"The Make-up of Plain Women: Understanding the Construction of Beauty and Body Image Among a Community of Amish Women"

Jennifer Kidd, 2001

Susan Davis, 2000 
"Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh" 
Honorable Mention: Lauren Schmidt

Reagan Lothes, 1999 
"The Immaculate Conception of the Faerie Queene and Sir Walter Ralegh's Proposed Possession of Guiana: The Rape of Feminine Power"

Jennifer Nauck, 1998 
"Written on the Body: A Discourse on Différance"

Corinne Wohlford, 1997 
"She Who Holds Her Tongue: A Feminist Reading of Disney's The Little Mermaid"

Anne Ford, 1996 
"'Great Things In Her Liberation': Manipulation and Revision in Hildegard's Scivias"

Erin Fox, 1995 
"Entrance to and Exit from the Green World: The Feminine Condition in the Works of Colette"

Kim Snyder, 1995 
"Factors Contributing to Women's Changing Representation in the House of Representatives, 1980-1994"

Gay Zoldesy, 1994 
"Phallogocentrism: L'Ecriture Feminine"

Molly Wilkinson, 1993 
"Catharine Beecher: Feminist"

Three of these recent winners are currently doing graduate work; one is working in public relations; one is beginning a year of teaching English in Japan.