Sigma Tau Delta recognized excellence by awarding over $12,000 for the best convention submissions at the Red & Black Convention Awards Gala.
Given for the best presentations by active student and alumni members at the Sigma Tau Delta International Convention, these awards were established in 1991 by Isabel Sparks, the fifth President of Sigma Tau Delta.
First Place ($600)
Sarah Roberson
Blue Mountain College (MS)
“Dear Memories”
Second Place ($400)
Halston Belcastro
Northwest Missouri State University (MO)
“Something about a Monster”
Third Place ($200)
Lissa Heineman
Muhlenberg College (PA)
“Walter Goes West”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Kylie Krummel
Shepherd University (WV)
“Lather, Rinse, Repeat”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Rachel Holbrook
Tennessee Wesleyan University (TN)
“A Slow Burn”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Rita Rivera
Palm Beach Atlantic University, FL
“Padre Nuestro”
First Place ($600)
Elizabeth Potter
Westfield State University (MA)
“Iman: A Critical Narrative of the Situation in Syria”
Second Place ($400)
Miranda Hudson
Randolph College (VA)
“Orokomono”
Third Place ($200)
Kelsey Juszczak
Slippery Rock University (PA)
“Out of the Stones and into the Flowerbed”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Jaime Suidgeest
Aquinas College (MI)
“When the Sky Attacked the Farmers below Sea Level”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Lauren Whitehead
SUNY, College at Cortland (NY)
“An Avellino Tale”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Hannah Partridge
Ball State University (IN)
“My Name in the Universe”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Nickolas Shironaka
Oklahoma City University (OK)
“Slaying Skeletons”
First Place ($600)
Sarah Spaulding
Carson-Newman University (TN)
“Identity through New Eyes”
Second Place ($400)
Madison Brown
Baker University (KS)
“Found on the Physicist’s Desk”
Third Place ($200)
John Carter
Ball State University (IN)
“Land/Locked Bodies”
Third Place ($200)
Brandon Ohl
University of North Texas (TX)
“Freedom from Propriety”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Delaney Holt
Western Kentucky University (KY)
“Kentucky Wilderness”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Adrian Sanders
Western Kentucky University (KY)
“This Side of the Dirt”
First Place ($600)
Rachel Sakrisson
Palm Beach Atlantic University (FL)
“Iago, Othello, and the Languages of Passivity and Activity”
Second Place ($400)
Amber Jurgensen
Louisiana Tech University (LA)
“Language and Social Class in Oliver Twist”
Third Place ($200)
Rachel Lyn Atkins
The College of New Jersey (NJ)
“The Satanic Verses: Forming the Immigrant Identity”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Hannah Gernhardt
University of Dallas (TX)
“The Dream of the Rood”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Audra Alexander
Mercyhurst University (PA)
“Reading Reform in Dickens’s Bleak House”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Christina Orlandos
Missouri State University (MO)
“The Duality of Woman in Lady Audley’s Secret”
First Place ($600)
Hannah Gissendanner
Louisiana Tech University (LA)
“Liminality and Sexual Freedom in Nabokov’s Lolita”
Second Place ($400)
Victoria Davis
Slippery Rock University (PA)
“Disability in the Modern Gothic”
Third Place ($200)
Elizabeth Vigil
University of Texas at El Paso (TX)
“He didn’t ask me if I wanted to be free”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Autumn Frykholm
Eastern Illinois University (IL)
“‘Usher’ and Quentin’s Self-Destructive Qualities”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Landon Graham
Utah State University (UT)
“Because I Love You: James Baldwin’s Open Letter”
First Place ($600)
Sarah Hovet
University of Oregon (OR)
“Irish Women Redefining Form: O’Brien and Bennett”
Second Place ($400)
Abigail Scott
Gordon College (MA)
“Narrative Distance in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart”
Third Place ($200)
Christofer Turpin
Lincoln Memorial University (TN)
“Phishing: Digital Interpretive Communities”
Third Place ($200)
Kelly Shannon
Muhlenberg College (PA)
“Queering Audience: Café Müller/Rite of Spring”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Moira Myers
Rockhurst University (MO)
“Radical Hospitality in Literature and Learning”
Honorable Mention ($100)
Sarah Anderle
High Point University (NC)
“English as ‘Spiritual Subjugation’”
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez
First Place ($300)
Brianna Maguire
Shepherd University (WV)
“Borders in Henríquez and Anzaldúa”
Second Place ($200)
Austin Pool
Park University (MO)
“Rare Gender Roles in The Book of Unknown Americans”
Second Place ($200)
Kelly Noll
The College of New Jersey (NJ)
“Scrapbook of an American Family”
Honorable Mention ($75)
Caroline Fenty
University of Oregon (OR)
“Unconscious Expressions of Fears and Repressions”
Each year, these awards recognize critical essays and creative works by active student and alumni writing on the convention theme; this year’s theme is Seeking Freedom. The monetary prizes are given in honor of Justin Q. Owen, the first National Secretary of Sigma Tau Delta.
First Place ($300)
Kosta Reed
University of Toronto Scarborough (CAN)
“Anatomy of Agency: Imagining Freedom in Mulholland Drive”
Second Place ($200)
Abby Ensign
Utah State University (UT)
“Finding Common Ground”
Second Place ($200)
Jenna Burke
The College of New Jersey (NJ)
“Kindred: The Neo-Slave Novel & Black Female Bodies”
Honorable Mention ($75)
Sarah Gentry
Lee University (TN)
“Edna’s Fruitless Quest for Freedom in The Awakening”
Honorable Mention ($75)
Grayson Chong
University of Toronto Scarborough (CAN)
“Choking Cordelia”
First Place ($300)
Minadora Macheret
University of North Texas (TX)
“Bandit God”
Second Place ($200)
DeAndra Miller
Minot State University (ND)
“A Lifetime of Races”
Third Place ($100)
Najelle Gilmore
Alma College (MI)
“We all just want to be happy we all just want to be loved”
Sigma Tau Delta values creative and scholarly contributions that represent diversity of abilities, races, and creeds, and we present special awards for the best among these submissions. Sigma Kappa Delta (our sister organization at two-year schools) and Alumni Epsilon (the alumni chapter of Sigma Tau Delta) also reward excellent submissions by their members.
Beyond convention submissions, the organization also gives prizes for “Outstanding Chapter Displays” (posters displayed and judged during Convention). And Sigma Tau Delta Scholarship and Award applicants submit Convention-theme-based essays that are eligible for prizes.
First Place ($300)
Dana Eckstein Berkowitz
“En Pointe”
Second Place ($200)
Kara Knickerbocker
“Unbound & Beginning”
Third Place ($100)
Maria Printon
“I Was Taught to Be Heterosexual”
Honorable Mention ($75)
Talia Burton
“The Scorpion”
Honorable Mention ($75)
Keshia McClantoc
“Examining Body Horror and Sex in The Strain”
Honorable Mention ($75)
Mary Paplham
“Trains of Thought ‘In a Station of the Metro’”
First Place ($100)
Alpha Upsilon Phi Chapter
University of North Georgia, Gainesville Campus (GA)
Honorable Mention ($50)
Alpha Pi Eta Chapter
University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast (MS)
Honorable Mention ($50)
Alpha Zeta Xi Chapter
University of Guam (GU)