Prizes & Awards

Undergraduate writers may not submit the same essay to more than one prize.

Awards of $300 each are offered for excellent expository writing in First-Year Writing Seminars, Expository Writing, and Writing in the Majors sections. To be eligible for these awards, essays must have been written in response to a teacher's assignment. Student essays are eligible for possible submission in Discoveries, the Knight Institute's annual magazine of student prize-winning essays. Every student submitting an essay for prize consideration must be nominated by their instructor, fill out an application and submit the essay to the Knight Institute Prizes and Awards Canvas site (link will be sent to you with your nomination from instructor).

Prizes for Students in First-Year Writing Seminars 

• Elmer Markham Johnson Prize
  This prize is given in memory of Elmer Markham Johnson, who taught first-year English at Cornell and served as Chancellor of Telluride House. (Fall) Students must be nominated by their instructor to apply (link to application will be included with nomination).

• James E. Rice, Jr. Awards
  The generosity of the Adelphic Cornell Educational Fund allows us to offer two James E. Rice, Jr. '30 Awards of $300 each. Honorable mentions, if any, will receive $100. Publication of winning entries in next year's Discoveries is also possible.  Judge Rice, a leader in civic and philanthropic activities in Tompkins County for over fifty years, was a student of Elmer Markham Johnson. (Fall and Spring) Students must be nominated by their instructor to apply (link to application will be included with nomination).

• Adelphic Award 
  The Adelphic Award is sponsored by the Adelphic Cornell Educational Fund. Each semester an award of $300 is made for the best essay written in a First-Year Writing Seminar by a student whose native language is other than English. Honorable mentions, if any, will receive $100. Publication of the essay in next year's Discoveries is also possible. (Fall and Spring) Students must be nominated by their instructor to apply (link to application will be included with nomination).

• Neil Lubow Prize 
  Through the generosity of the Riger Potash Family Fund and with the sponsorship of the Cornell Program on Ethics and Public Life, this prize is given in memory of Neil Lubow '66, who was a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of New Hampshire. It is awarded for an outstanding essay in ethics, including moral philosophy and ethical issues in public policy, science, business and personal life. An award of $400 is made for the best essay submitted from a First-Year Writing Seminar, English 2880 (Expository Writing), Writing in the Majors, or classes participating in the University Courses Initiative. Publication of winning essays in Discoveries is also possible. Students must be nominated by their instructor to apply (link to application will be included with nomination).

• Gertrude Spencer Prize
  The Gertrude Spencer prize of $350 each will be awarded to a graduate student instructor and his/her student for work done as a normal part of the course that illustrates teacher-student collaboration and its impact on the student’s writing. The teacher may, for example, have designed a sequence of in-class activities coupled with conferences and feedback on writing that led to the writer’s growth. The essay itself may well be one that is significant not because it is “perfect,” but because it demonstrates that the student’s writing and understanding of the course material improved significantly.

• Gertrude Spencer Portfolio Award
  This prize, in the amount of $350 to the graduate student instructor and $350 to his/her student, is given in memory of Gertrude Spencer and will be awarded each semester to a student and instructor in recognition of excellence in the development of a portfolio of the student's essays. (Fall and Spring). A portfolio (including a minimum of four essays and no more than seven) might display the growth in the student's writing ability over the course of the semester; it might show the excellence of the student's work in a variety of modes of writing; it might display the excellence and development of a student's work with a particular topic. Students must be nominated by their instructor to apply (link to application will be included with nomination).

Prizes for Upper-level Students

• Expository Writing Prize (English 2880)
  Given each semester, courtesy of the Knight Fund, to the student who writes the best essay in English 2880. Students must be nominated by their instructor to apply (link to application will be included with nomination).

• Knight Prize for Writing in the Majors
  Offered each semester for the best student paper written in a course affiliated with Writing in the Majors. (Fall and Spring)

• Neil Lubow Prize
  Through the generosity of the Riger Potash Family Fund and with the sponsorship of the Cornell Program on Ethics and Public Life, this prize is given in memory of Neil Lubow '66, who was a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of New Hampshire. It is awarded for an outstanding essay in ethics, including moral philosophy and ethical issues in public policy, science, business and personal life. An award of $400 is made for the best essay submitted from a First-Year Writing Seminar, English 2880 (Expository Writing), or a Writing in the Majors course. Publication of winning essays in Discoveries is also possible. Students must be nominated by their instructor to apply (link to application will be included with nomination).

• Knight Award for Writing Exercises
  • The Knight Award for Writing Exercises, each semester in the amount of $350, recognizes instructor excellence in short exercises designed to improve student writing. Appropriate topics may be drawn from the whole range of writing issues, large to small scale, such as development of theses, use of primary sources, organization of evidence, awareness of audience, attention to sentence patterns (e.g., passive/active voice; coordination/subordination), attention to diction, uses of punctuation, and attention to mechanics (e.g., manuscript formats, apostrophes). Exercises may be developed for use in and/or out of class. (Fall and Spring)
• James Slevin Assignment Sequence Prize
  • The James Slevin Assignment Sequence Prize of $500 will be made to the teacher submitting the best sequence of writing assignments used in a First-Year Writing Seminar. (Fall and Spring.) Assignment sequences in a writing course are built around a series of essay topics, but submissions should also include a rationale and a description of your plans for eliciting and responding to student drafts and revisions. You might also describe your ideas on how you ready students for each essay assignment, for example by engaging them in preparatory writing exercises, including informal writing designed to help students understand the material on which they subsequently write formal essays. Reflections on what worked well, and why, and on what you would change another time would be welcome.
• The Teaching Portfolio Award for Graduate Student Instructors of First-Year Writing Seminars
  • ​​​Each spring the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines will give two awards of $750 for outstanding achievement in reflective pedagogy, as embodied in a teaching portfolio submitted by a graduate-student instructor of a First-Year Writing Seminar. An Honorable Mention, if any, will receive $250. Applications are due Monday, July 15, 2024. View the application.

• The Buttrick-Crippen Assistantship provides a full year of support during which the recipient can devote themselves to the study and practice of teaching composition within and beyond the context of their discipline. Supporting materials should be submitted by January 17, 2025. Applications for the Buttrick-Crippen Assistantship can be found at the Buttrick-Crippen Canvas site.

The winners will be announced to the Cornell community, and copies of winning submissions will be made available to interested persons.