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Writing Prize Winners

About the Prizes

The Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing

Prize Albert I. Dickerson, for many years Dean of Freshmen, took great interest in first-year composition. In his memory, a prize has been established which will be awarded annually to that student who writes an outstanding expository essay in a First-Year Seminar/Humanities 2, or in a Writing 5/Humanities 1 class, or in a Writing 2-3 class, as decided by a committee of Writing Program faculty. 

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

The First Year Excellence in Writing Award, made possible by the Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund, is for "the best piece of writing by a first-year student in one of the first-year writing courses." For more information about these prizes, please see our Prizes page.

2022

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: Tristan X. Lin, "Firearm Localism: The Next Step for Second Amendment Doctrine"
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Eliza Dunn, "Hidden Forces of Love: Jewish Mothers During the Holocaust"
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Alexander Zhelyazkov, "Observational Pitfalls in the Search for Life"

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

  • Jenny Oh, "Metamorphic Agency: Feminism and Pornography in The Handmaiden"

2021

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: Mary-Margaret Cummings, "Why Facebook (and Others!) May Know Your Health Information"
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Tabitha Klein, "Make the Yuletide Gay: Queer Christmas Heterotopia"
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Heather Damia, "Untamed and Unpunished: The Transgressiveness of Kinsey Millhone"

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

  • Phoebe Altman, "Materializing the Immaterial: How Light in Photography Offers a Way to Conceptualize Death on a Grand Scale

2020

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: Elizabeth Orecchia, "Stephen Crane’s Maggie, A Girl of the Streets: A Budget Analysis of Life in the Tenements at the Turn of the 19th Century"
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Daniel Westphal, "Analyzing the Constitutionality of Physician Assisted Suicide Using the Right to Privacy"
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Clara Pakman,  "Mental Domesticity vs Dwelling in Possibility"

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

  • Sunil Krish, "Metamorphosis as Flux: Reconciling Marxism and Postmodernism in Bong’s Parasite"

2019

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: Tooryanand Seetohul, "Let them Speak Cake"
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Hayley Piper, "Indigenous Civilizations of Latin America in Animated Film: An Analysis of Cultural Representation in The Road to El Dorado and The Emperor’s New Groove"
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Felicia Ann Ragucci, "Asserting a Feminist Humanity: Nora’s Deliberate Performance and Ultimate Rejection of her Gender Role in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House"

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

  • Emily Sun (Yu Xin Sun), "Untitled"

 

2018

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: Autumn Dinh, "Adela Quested--The 'Wrong Sort' of Anglo Indian Woman"
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Bennet Clark, "The Language of Experience of Religion in C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy"
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Shreyas Agnihotri, "Crafting a Victim-Flcused Approach to America's Death Penalty"

 

2017

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: Ama Kyerewaa, "Hanuman: A Great God in Hinduism, a Demonic Beast in Christianity."
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Iris L. Wang, "Forgotten History and Erased Memories: Confronting Japanese World War II Atrocities."
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Maya Frost-Belansky, "Consensual Pregnancy: The Moral Permissibility of Abortion."

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

  • Alyssa Gao, "Determining the Existence of Interdisciplinary Individuals in the Field of Environmental Studies." 

 

2016

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: Caleb Smith, “The Evolution of Protagonist-Zombie Interactions in American Zombie Cinema: A Mirror of Evolving Race Relations Between White and Black America"
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Margaret Cross, "Exposing the Link between Crime and Sexual Trauma"
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Wendy Kang’ethe, “The Transcendent Nature of Beauty"

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

  • Jon Scott, “An XL Proposal with Larger Consequences"

 

 

2015

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: No prize awarded
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Emily Smid, “Homosocial Regionalism in Modern Country Music"
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Wendy Kang’ethe, “The Transcendent Nature of Beauty": Theo Minerva, “Too Much of a Sweet Thing: The Case for an Increased FDA Role in Reducing Sugar Consumption"

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

  • Alex Sclafani, “Monsanto Company: Planting Corn, but Growing Troubles"

2014

Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman Writing Prize

  • Writing 2-3 category: No prize awarded
  • Writing 5 / Humanities 1 category: Emily Burack, “Can Soccer Help Arabs Achieve Equality in Israel?” 
  • First-year Seminar / Humanities 2 category: Michelle Li, “Hope, Suffering, and a Lost Dream: The Representation of the Golden Venture Story in Wang Ping’s ‘Song of Calling Souls’”

Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund First Year Excellence in Writing Award

  • Benjamin Prudhomme, “Orozco’s Serpientes: Contextualization and Visual Analysis"