Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program Resources

The Women’s and Gender Studies Program offers two student writing awards, named in honor of the contributions and continued work of Dr. Mary C. Sullivan, Religious Sisters of Mercy.

• The Mary C. Sullivan Women’s and Gender Studies Writing Award recognizes an outstanding essay (typically between 5-10 pages in length) that addresses a topic of importance to women’s and gender studies. Topics might include difference, patriarchy, power, politics of representation, bodies, sexual harassment and sexual violence, global women’s health, feminist history, gender identities, sexuality, transgender concerns, critical race and ethnic studies, intersectionality, activism, resistance, social justice movements, disability studies, environmental justice, equity, pay gaps, women in science, women’s art and literary practices, and other topics central to women’s and gender studies’ myriad investigations into the relations between gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, and other identities, power, and their social, cultural, and political experiences and possibilities in different contexts.
   
• The Mary C. Sullivan Women’s and Gender Studies Knowledge-Building Award recognizes an outstanding research or community-based knowledge-building project that puts women’s and gender studies methods, knowledges, or lines of critical inquiry into practice (creatively, practically, or analytically) to raise awareness or to work towards increasing equity at RIT or another chosen community.  Students will need to submit a written account of their project (approximately 4-5 pages in length) using MLA or APA format that explains their knowledge-building project’s aims and exactly how it puts women’s and gender studies approaches or concerns to work in a specific context.

• Open to currently enrolled RIT undergraduate students for work completed in any College of Liberal Arts course or any Women’s and Gender Studies course outside the College of Liberal Arts. The work must have been completed for a course taken in either spring, summer or fall 2019.
• Administered by the CLA Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
• Annual nomination (by faculty) in Spring semester.
• Winners are presented their awards at the Henry and Mary Kearse Distinguished Lecture and Student Writing Award Ceremony.
• Cash prizes are awarded for the best work in each category.
• Deadline for submission: January 27, 2020.

Submission Guidelines

• Nominated written essays and/or written accounts of knowledge-building projects should be submitted by the instructor of the Women’s and Gender Studies or College of Liberal Arts course for which the essay or project was completed. 
• Instructors should email to WGS Director, Silvia Benso (silvia.benso@rit.edu) and to WGS Co-Director, Chris Henry Hinesley (chhgsm@rit.edu):
  • 1) the nominated student paper (with writers’ names removed from all pages); d
  • 2) a cover sheet indicating the title of the paper, the student’s full name, the student’s university I.D. #, and the name and semester of the course for which the paper/project was completed.
• These materials must be received by 5:00 p.m. on January 27, 2020.
• Instructors may submit more than one paper and/or project to the competition.

Please specify if the submitted work is being considered for other awards.

2020
Lauren Burke
“Maternal Mortality in the United States: A Sociological Perspective” written for SOCI 322 Society, Environment, & Health (taught by Dr. Anthony Jimenez).

2019
Anna Leah Bowman
“Communication Dynamics and Patient Experience” written for UWRT 150 (taught by Luke Daly).

Emily Israel-Paniccia
“Juvenile Sex Offenders” written for WGST/COMM 255 Seminar on Sexual Violence (taught by Stacy DeRooy).

2018
Christine McCullough (Digital Humanities and Social Sciences Major)
“Defining DH: Intersectionality in the Digital Humanities” written for WGST/PHIL 309 Feminist Theory (taught by Evelyn Brister).

Mary C. Sullivan, R.S.M., is a Sister of Mercy living in Rochester, New York. She has taught in elementary and secondary schools and colleges. Dr. Sullivan has been a much-esteemed first female Dean of the RIT College of Liberal Arts from 1977-1987, Chair of the Academic Senate, an English Department Chair, and a committed teacher and scholar of language and literature. She received the Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1995-6 and received the RITirees Award in 2005 in honor of her exemplary service over her 33 years at RIT. She is Professor Emerita of Literature and Dean Emerita of the RIT College of Liberal Arts. Dr. Sullivan continues to model this impressive combination of scholarship, teaching, writing, leadership, and community activism, which we hope to recognize and promote through the Mary Sullivan Awards for RIT’s students who continue exceptional work along these lines in their College of Liberal Arts coursework.

Dr. Sullivan is the author and editor of the following books: Catherine McAuley and the Tradition of Mercy (University of Notre Dame Press, 1995, 2000); The Friendship of Florence Nightingale and Mary Clare Moore (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999); The Correspondence of Catherine McAuley, 1818-1841 (The Catholic University of America Press, 2012); and A Shining Lamp: The Oral Instructions of Catherine McAuley (The Catholic University of America Press, 2017).

Make a gift to the Mary C. Sullivan Award fund here.