Case Western Reserve University writing faculty and graduate and undergraduate students were recognized for their achievements at the Writing Program Awards Ceremony in April.
Faculty awards
Jennifer Carter, associate professor of materials science and engineering, received the Jessica Melton Perry Award for Distinguished Teaching in Disciplinary and Professional Writing for her dedication to instruction in writing in both the classroom and in her research. One of Carter’s students described her ability to uphold a “positive co-writing space” during team meetings, influencing students to provide feedback to their peers.
Narcisz Fejes, SAGES Teaching Fellow and lecturer in the English department, was granted the SAGES Excellence in Writing Instruction Award. Fejes’ positive reviews from students emphasized her impactful and creative teaching as a SAGES professor, and the dedication she showed her students during Writing Resource Center (WRC) sessions outside of class.
The WRC Excellence in Consulting Award, which acknowledges faculty members who provide exceptional instruction to students at the Writing Resource Center, was awarded to two recipients this year: Bernie Jim, SAGES Teaching Fellow and lecturer in the department of history, and Meredith Steck, SAGES Teaching Fellow and lecturer in English. Both Jim and Steck were nominated for their outstanding teaching skills that have significantly contributed to students’ writing abilities.
Graduate students
English department PhD students Charlie Ericson and Camila Ring were recognized for their impact on Case Western Reserve University’s Writing Program through their creative writing and teaching abilities. Ericson received the Timothy Calhoun Memorial Prize for Poetry, an award reserved for the best poem or group of poems by a graduate student in the English department. Ring was given the Graduate Dean’s Instructional Excellence Award from the School of Graduate Studies.
Undergraduate students
The following students received University Seminar Essay Prizes for their outstanding works in First and/or University Seminars in the 2020-2021 academic year:
- Blake Botto: “Proposal for Change: Building a Bridge to a New, More Diverse Audience for Cuyahoga Valley National Park”
- Claire Hahn: “Redistributing Power through Magical Realism: Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water”
- Sofia Lemberg: “The Use of Music as a Tool of Queer Allyship by Non-Queer Artists”
- Mirra Rasmussen: “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Consistency and Inconsistency in the Face of Transgender Identity”
University Seminar Essay Prize recipients (2021-2022):
- William Dehmler: “Purifying the Toxic Substances Control Act”
- Jackson Jacobs: “Two Decades in Afghanistan on American Feminism”
First Seminar Essay Prize recipients (fall 2021):
- Adam Rohrer: “Letter to Governor DeWine”
- Ethan Teel: “Facing Existential Fears in Children’s Metafiction”
- Cordelia Teeters: “Over My Dead Body”
Read the award-winning essays on the Writing Program’s Writing Awards page.