Dan Jones Writing Prizes

The College of Liberal Arts has received an endowment gift that establishes and will support annual writing prizes. The endowment was given in memory of Dan Jones, former Professor of English, Chair, Dean, Provost, and Interim President at Towson, and each recipient of the awards will be acknowledged as receiving the Dan Jones Writing Prize.

Grub Street
Grub Street

2021 Winners:

Category Name Paper Title
Towson Seminar Katherine Walsh “Geopolitical Borders and Argentina’s ‘White Nation’”
Lower Division Course Isabel Perera “Essay on An American Childhood”
Humanities Justin Williamson “The Evolution of Lilith: The World’s First Feminist”
Social Sciences Taryn Painter “The Russian Federation Bureau of Humanitarian Emergencies and Migration”

Student papers must be nominated by a faculty member to be eligible for this award.

  • The program will provide annual award[s] in the College of Liberal Arts to honor and celebrate exemplary undergraduate writing across a range of disciplines and programs within the College.
  • Papers considered for the award must have been written for an undergraduate course in the College of Liberal Arts during the previous year. Students must be enrolled at Towson at the time of submission for the award.  The year of eligibility will include the Spring semester of the prior year and the Fall semester just preceding the nomination deadline. (For example, Spring 2020 and Fall 2020 for the 2021 awards.)
  • Papers will be nominated by faculty members and a student may submit only one paper to be considered for the award. A nomination form signed by the faculty member must accompany each student’s submission of the paper.
  • Two copies of the paper must be submitted: the copy of the paper graded by the faculty member who taught the class and including his/her comments and a clean unedited copy of the same paper. The student will also be asked to sign the nomination form to confirm eligibility.
  • There will be four awards of $1000 each.  One award will be given for a paper written in the social sciences. A second award will be given for a paper written in the humanities. All departments in the College will be associated with one or the other of these groupings, though the student and faculty member may decide to submit a specific paper for either award. A third award will be given for a paper on any subject written in a  lower-division course (100 or 200 level) offered in the College of Liberal Arts with the exception of courses meeting Core 1 or Core 2 requirements (the TSEM or English Composition).  A fourth award will be given for a paper written in a Towson Seminar taught by a faculty member from the College of Liberal Arts.
  • Each award recipient will be selected by a committee of three faculty members appointed by the Dean.

The link for the Nomination Form can be found here (DOCX).

Nominations must be received by no later than the first Friday in February each year. 

Copies of the nomination form may be obtained on the CLA website.

Chris J. Chulos
Dean