Awards
Dorothy McGuigan Prizes for the Best Essays on Women and/or Gender
Information for the 2008 Dorothy McGuigan Prizes
Each year the Women’s Studies Department awards prizes for the best undergraduate and graduate essays on women and/or gender written at the University of Michigan. The prizes honor the memory of Dorothy Gies McGuigan, a distinguished alumna of the University of Michigan who taught in the School of Business Administration and the Residential College. Dorothy McGuigan was an early supporter of the Women’s Studies Department and a founder and member of the editorial board of the University of Michigan Press series on Women and Culture. Her many works include: The Dangerous Experiment: 100 Years of Women at the University of Michigan (University of Michigan, 1970); The Hapsburgs (Doubleday, 1966) and Metternich and the Duchess (Doubleday, 1975). In a citation for Distinguished Service to the University presented in 1975, the U-M Board of Regents noted that Dorothy McGuigan “is held in widespread esteem as a research historian and author and is widely acclaimed on campus as a true leader of women.”
Eligibility
Essays written during the previous calendar year are eligible for the competition. Students must have been enrolled at the Ann Arbor, Dearborn, or Flint campuses of the University of Michigan during the semester in which they wrote the essay, but the essay does not have to have been written for a class. The contest is open to all fields, but personal stories, fiction, and poetry are not eligible. Each author may submit only one entry.
Criteria
Essays are evaluated by an interdisciplinary committee for their contribution to our understanding of some aspect of women’s lives or roles or for the acuity of their feminist analysis of gender and/or sexuality, as well as for their originality and clarity of presentation.
Deadlines
Essays are usually due by February 1 of each year.
Prize
An award of $500 and a certificate will be presented to each winner at an annual awards event in late March or early April.
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Robin I. Thevenet Fellowship
The Thevenet Fellowship is in memory of Robin I. Thevenet, a graduate student
in the joint program in English and Education at the University of Michigan.
Her dissertation concerned Victorian women educators who had written autobiographies
describing how they had decided to become teachers and then went on to found
schools or colleges. Awarded annually to two students in either the
Women’s
Studies Certificate Program, or the Certificate in LGBTQ, the Thevenet is designed
to further research on women by graduate students at the University of Michigan
by supporting research-related expenses.
Eligibility
Applicants must be students in good standing enrolled in either the Women’s Studies Certificate Program or the LGBTQ Studies Certificate Program at the University of Michigan.
Criteria
Students must submit a two-page statement describing the research project and how the funding will be used; a complete and current curriculum vitae; and the name of the dissertation advisor or Master’s program advisor. The applications are evaluated by an inter-disciplinary certificate advisory committee.
Deadlines
Application materials are usually due in mid-February.
Prize
A monetary award and a certificate will be presented to each winner at an annual awards event in late March or early April.
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