“My effort to help them become stronger writers engages a host of contradictions. I want them to use what they know about the world to illuminate our class inquiry, and I want them to become passionate researchers of others’ scholarly work at the same time. I want them to claim a level of authority as writers, and I want them to step out of the way to engage others’ work. This is a difficult dance.”
— Don rothman, “The Writing Program as a Laboratory for Democracy”
Don Rothman, a 39-year member of Oakes College and Writing Program faculty, founded this award to honor the writing achievements of students in the Writing Program.
Monetary awards total up to $2,000 per year and are presented to several award winners at a public ceremony.
Guidelines & Application
To submit your project to the judging committee for the Don Rothman Endowed Award in First-Year Writing, please review the guidelines below. Here is the submission form.
- The project you submit must have originated in a Writing Program course during 2024-25 academic year, and the student must be in their first-year at UCSC.
- Include neither your name nor your instructor’s name anywhere on your project.
- Submissions. We welcome all writing projects completed by first-year students in writing courses. These may include traditional written genres, such as academic, analytic, or nonfiction writing, as well as various other genres (speeches, manifestos, podcasts, comics, infographics, etc.).
- All submitted projects must not contain the student’s name. Written projects must be under 2500 words.
- If the project has sound (via video and/or audio), it should be captioned.
Judging: In the fall, a team of Writing Program faculty determine the winning submissions from the previous academic year.
Awards Ceremony: Students whose essays are selected for the award, as well as faculty in whose classes the essays originated, are recognized at an awards ceremony in fall quarter, following the spring submission deadline.
Essays selected to receive an award are posted to the Writing Program Website, shared at the Awards Ceremony, and may be published and distributed within the UCSC community.
2021-22
Camille Vergely for “Growing Up on a Dying Planet” (Instructor: Dina El Dessouky)
Loki Malak for “Lesbian Community: Confusion or Connection?” (Instructor: Lindsay Knisely)
Camille Lagunera for “From Splendor in the Grass to Sexploitation: The Sex Revolution of the 1960s in American Cinema” (Instructor: Brij Lunine)
Julia Spilman for “Aphantasia: An Unusual Blindness” (Instructor: Brij Lunine)
2020-21
Christopher Schade for “A Short Guide to Setting Goals” (Instructor: Heather Shearer)
Amalia Bostian for “Caught in the In-Betweens: The Tensions and Relationships between Corporations, the Republican Party, and Social Issues in America” (Instructor: Erica Halk)
Alexandra Singer for “Two Illustrations, One America” (Instructor: Maggie Amis)
Dante Buhl for “Ethics and Design: An Adulterous Matrimony” (Instructor: Tiffany Wong)
2019-20
Audrey Mai for “Ada Chen: Defining Chinese-America” (Instructor: Mark Baker)
Eleanor Wilson for “Leading the Charge and Facing the Consequences: The Role of Teenage Girls in Pop Culture” (Instructor: Dina El Dessouky)
Alex Paulsen for “Love in the Time of Ableism” (Instructor: Dina El Dessouky)
Nathan Maffei for “The Great American Myth: The American Dream” (Instructor: Toby Loeffler)
2018-19
Danielle Garcia for “The Ongoing Fight for Equity” (Instructor: Ellen Newberry)
Tracy Rocha for “Gateway into the Mainstream: Transgender Representation in American Visual Media” (Instructor: Brenda Sanfilippo)
Sophie Gilliland for “Sámi Generational Knowledge and Culture in the Face of Climate Change” (Instructor: Phil Longo)
Kira Wates-Williams for “Why the United States Should Change its Immigration Policy: How Immigration Policy Change Led to MS 13” (Instructor: Erica Halk)
2017-18
Hannah Payne for “Conformity in Rwanda: A Case Study of Social Psychological Forces in Genocide” (Instructor: Catherine Carlstroem)
Ishana Shukla for “The Picket Fence” (Instructor: Lindsay Knisely)
Holden Jurisich for “Late Stage Capitalism and the Republican Hand in Maintaining it” (Instructor: Kiva Silver)
Meg Mindlin for “An Argument to Conduct More Research on the Common Octopus” (Instructor: Terry Terhaar)
Sam Garbus for “Viewing Violence” (Instructor: Farnez Fatemi)
Nick Yi for “Korean Americans in Local Media During the Los Angeles Riots” (Instructor: Heather Schlaman)
2016-17
Maris Degener for “Accepting the Unacceptable: Rape Culture in America” (Instructor: Katie Woolsey)
Sydney Tinker Quynn for “The Intersectionality of Obesity, Poverty, and Race in the United States” (Instructor: Jesse Gillispie)
Diego Martinez for “La Historia de Esperanza/The Story of Hope” (Instructor: Ben Carson)
Nathan Lao for “Required Reading: The Textbook Monopoly in American Education” (Instructor: Catherine Carlstroem)
2015-16
Carolin Wahl for “Political Divisions in Europe: The Refugee Crisis” (Instructor: Brij Lunine)
Jennifer Fullerton for “Bat Simulator: Discourse Edition” (Instructor: Annalisa Rava)
Vicente Lovelace for “Boiling Point: The Tea Party from 2009-Present” (Instructor: Catherine Carlstroem)
2014-15
Morgan Halverson for “Hands” (Instructor: Laura Martin)
Noah Dove for “A Fish out of Water” (Instructor: Noria Jablonski)
Raquela Bases for “A Retroactive Taste of the Bitterness of Inequality” (Instructor: Melissa Sanders-Self)
2013-14
Tanner Rose for “The Hidden Minority” (Instructor: Lindsay Knisely)
Maxwell Sutton for “Critique of ‘Voting Democracy off the Island’: An Argument that Won’t Hold Water” (Instructor: Erica Halk)
Danielle Williams for “Identity Thief” (Instructor: Rebecca Hurdis)
2012-13
Alma Morales for “Nina De Mexico, Student of America–Daughter of Nowhere” (Instructor: Steve Carter)
Jeremiah Tsyporin for “The Mega University” (Instructor: Maggie Amis)
Celia Fong for “The Quran, Translation, and Controversy” (Instructor: Veronica Flanagan)
Marisol Medina-Cadena for “The Master of Disguise: Fast Food Chains and Their Influence” (Instructor: Robin Somers)
Maggie McFarland for “Mixed Blood, Mixed Emotions: Interpreting a Biracial Experience in America” (Instructor: Sarah Amador)
2011-12
Grace Lukach for “Living Beside the Shadow of Death” (Instructor: Maggie Amis)
Jacqueline Tejada for “Sovereignty and the Self-Made Superman: Deconstructing Nietzsche’s Ubermensch” (Instructor: Edward Kehler)
Farman Robinson for “Through the Looking Glass by Charlie Parker and Jackson Pollock” (Instructor: Roxi Hamilton)
Ephraim Margolin for “A Letter to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels” (Instructor: Jessica Samuels)
2010-11
Sarah Edelstein for “‘Til Death Do We Choose” (Instructor: Kiva Silver)
Adam Beighley for “The Twin Forces of a Wave” (Instructor: Maggie Amis)
Briana Bernstein for “Freud’s Model of Civilization and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four” (Instructor: Brij Lunine)
Kerianne Doi for “Mackey Versus Pollan: War of Whole Foods” (Instructor: Robin Somers)
Jackson Greer for “Getting Back to the Farm” (Instructor: Jude Todd)
Rosalie Evans for “The Graphic Truth” (Instructor: Carol Gerster)
2009-10
Molly Carpenter for “Functional Creativity” (Instructor: Jeff Arnett)
Maribeth Rohman for “Revamping the Renaissance: An Annotated Bibliography” (Instructor: James Wilson)
Eric Harrod for “Collaboration in Angels in America” (Instructor: Bob Giges)
Rachel Jacobson for “Traditional Iran, Modern Rebellion” (Instructor: Virginia Benitez)
Michele Jennings for “Socialization Turns to Terrorism” (Instructor: Mrinal Sinha)
Keira Nolan for “Persepolis: The Complexity of Simplification” (Instructor: Bob Giges)
Joelle Vann for “Introducing Animals as Living, Breathing, Thinking, Feeling” (Instructor: Annalisa Rava)