Department of English
Awards Convocation
2021-2022
Program
Literary Contest Winners
Graduate Student Winners
Vreeland Award for Poetry
Saddiq Dzukogi
Vreeland Award for Fiction
Sandoz/Prairie Schooner Awards for Fiction
Gaffney/Academy of American Poets Awards for Poetry
Susan Atefat Peckham Fellowship
Sunita Jain Award for Excellence in Poetry
Undergraduate Winners
Vreeland Award for Poetry
Megan Willburn
Vreeland Award for Fiction
LeeAnn Mosby
Marjorie Stover Short Story Awards
Natalia Martinez
– First Place –
Emma Krab
– Second Place –
Undergraduate Poetry Awards
Madison Sides
– Irby Wood Prize –
Dominic Bhola
– First Place Gaffney Prize –
Angela Thornburg
– Second Place Gaffney Prize –
Gaffney Scholarly Essay Award
Claire VanLaningham
Gaffney Personal Essay Award
Lauryl Hebenstreit
Laurus Awards
Prose
Emma Krab
– First Place –
Xinyi Li
– Second Place –
Poetry
Anna Synya
– First Place –
Mimi Yu
– Second Place –
Visual Art
Kaylee Brown
– First Place –
Readings by Graduate Contest Winners
Saddiq Dzukogi
Vreeland Award for Poetry
Jonathan Wlodarski
Vreeland Award for Fiction
In Memoriam: Regan Lauber
Regan Victoria Lauber, of Milford, Nebraska, passed away on March 17, 2022 at the age of 21. Regan was in her senior year of college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, set to graduate in May 2022 with her Bachelor of Arts in English.
Regan aspired to continue her education and wanted to move to Austin, Texas, to be with her sister, Madison, while attending graduate school. Regan was an exceptional reader and writer and particularly liked reading fiction, young adult, and gothic novels. She also wrote a book with her dear friend Kyhana that they were planning to publish. Memorials may be directed to the family for future designation and scholarships.
Undergraduate Awards & Honors
UNL Honors Program Graduates
Margaret Rieckman
Taylor Hogan
Tasneem Huq
Sarah Kee
Rosaleen Kottwitz
Alexis Stoffers
Megan Willburn
Lauren Yaple
Graduations with Distinction
Summer 2021
Distinction
Maia Bryan
December 2021
High Distinction
Kayleigh Ryan
Distinction
Grace Fitzgibbon
Teagan Graber
May 2022
Highest Distinction
Tasneem Huq
Maggie Rieckman
Alexis Stoffers
Megan Willburn
High Distinction
Lauren Yaple
Distinction
Molly Beck
Grace Jacobsen
Sarah Kee
Natalia Martinez
Grace Dunbar
Taylor Hogan
Cal Ivey
Eric Morris
Elsa Rasmussen
Mia Schaeppi
Sydney Schumacher
Brandon Unverth
ESAB / Peer Mentors
Sarah Kee (Spring ’22)
Molly Beck (Spring ’22)
Tasneem Huq (Spring ’22)
Nicholas Harmon (August ’22)
Anna Hoffman
Louie Iannuzzelli
Cooper Rohde
Canyon Skare
Hannah Huynh
Megan Jerabek
Sam Cohen
Tillie Stanton
Other Awards
Student Luminary Award
Taylor Daum
Student Impact Awards – Sport Club Athletes of the Year
Abbey O'Brien, UNL Cycling Club
Readings by Graduate Contest Winners
Nicole Lachat
Gaffney/Academy of American Poets · First Place
Tara Ballard
Susan Atefat Peckham Fellowship
Faculty Awards & Honors
Tenure & Promotions
Promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure
Promotion to Assistant Professor of Practice
Michael Page
Pascha Sotolongo Stevenson
University Awards & Appointments
Adele Hall Chair of English
Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award
Annis Chaikin Sorensen Award
Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community
Office of Research and Economic Development Arts and Humanities Research Enhancement Grant
Adrian Wisnicki, for “Recovering BIPOC Voices from the Victorian Periodical Press”
Office of Research and Economic Development Layman Seed Fund
Ng'ang'a Wahu-Mũchiri, for The Ardhi Initiative
Faculty Fellows for Student Success
UNL Women’s Center Women of Courage, Character, and Commitment award
College Awards
College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award
Pascha Sotolongo Stevenson
Hope Wabuke
Teaching Academy Fellowship
College Research Impact and Engagement Grant
Marco Abel, for Christian Petzold Interviews (with Jaimey Fisher)Matt Cohen, for The Silence of the Miskito Prince: How Cultural Dialogue Was Colonized
Human Rights & Humanitarian Affairs Faculty Fellowship
National & International Awards & Grants
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant
The African Poetry Digital Portal (Kwame Dawes and Lorna Dawes, co-PIs)
National Endowment for the Humanities Grant
Collaborative Organization for Virtual Education (Adrian Wisnicki, co-PI)
National Endowmment for the Humanities/National Writing Project Building a More Perfect Union Grant
The Nebraska Writing Project (Robert Brooke, director) and Friends of Homestead National Park, for “There's No Such Thing as Free Land: Understanding the Homestead Acts through Multiple Perspectives”
Purdue University Humanities Without Walls Seed Grant
“Recovering BIPOC Voices” (Adrian Wisnicki, co-PI)
American Antiquarian Society Member (Elected)
Hurston/Wright Foundation Madam C. J. Walker Award
The Calabash Literary Festival (Kwame Dawes, co-founder)
2022 Neustadt International Prize Finalist
Kwame Dawes, for Prophets
International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) Publication of the Year
Rachael W. Shah, for Rewriting Partnerships: Community Perspectives of Community-Based Learning
Coalition for Community Writing Outstanding Book Award
Rachael W. Shah, for Rewriting Partnerships: Community Perspectives of Community-Based Learning
Children's Literature Association's Honor Book Award
Gabrielle Owen, for A Queer History of Adolescence: Development Pasts, Relational Futures
Penguin Random House International “One World, One Book” Program
Timothy Schaffert, for The Perfume Thief
2022 “One Book, One Nebraska“ Selection
Jonis Agee, for The Bones of Paradise
Society for Textual Scholarship David Greetham Prize
Matt Cohen, for “Time and the Bibliographer: A Meditation on the Spirit of Book Studies”
Society for Textual Scholarship Richard J. Finneran Award
The Walt Whitman Archive (Nicole Gray, project lead), for the digital Leaves of Grass (1855) Variorum
National Endowment for the Humanities Open Book Award
Matt Cohen / University of Minnesota Press, for The Silence of the Miskito Prince: How Cultural Dialogue was Colonized
Graduate Student Awards & Honors
May 2022 Graduates
Ph.D.
David Henson (Timothy Schaffert)
Claire Jiménez (Joy Castro)
Linda Pawlenty (Amelia Montes)
M.A.
Simone Droge (Shari Stenberg)
Isaac Essex (Stacey Waite)
Hailey Fischer (Laura White & Beverley Rilett, co-chairs)
Jeffrey Hill (Timothy Schaffert)
Celie Knudsen (Shari Stenberg)
Caitlin Matheis (Matt Cohen)
Elva Moreno del Rio (Amelia Montes)
Caleb Petersen (Kwame Dawes)
Danielle Shumaker Page (Debbie Minter)
Placement News
Ph.D.
Saddiq Dzukogi - Assistant Professor of English, Mississippi State University
Nicole Green (2021 Graduate) - Writing Center Director, Denison University
Claire Jiménez - Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of English Language and Literature and the African American Studies program, University of South Carolina
Emily Rau - Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities, UNL Libraries, and Editor of the Willa Cather Archive
M.A.
Isaac Essex - Brown University American Studies Doctoral Program
Caitlin Matheis - University of Iowa Masters of Library Sciences Program
Caleb Petersen - UNL Creative Writing Program
Zainab Saleh (2021 Graduate) - Ohio State University English Doctoral Program
Department Awards
Stuff Fellowships
Erika Luckert
Ilana Masad
Keshia McClantoc
Zoe McDonald
John Robinson Award for Scholarly Papers
Erin Chambers
Instructor: Gabrielle Owen
Office of Graduate Studies Awards
Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award
Claire Jiménez (awarded May 2021)
Excellence in Mentoring Award
Jordan Charlton (awarded May 2021)
Outstanding Research & Creative Activities Award
Reagan Myers (awarded May 2021)
Other University Awards
Student Luminary Award
Saddiq Dzukogi
Institute for Ethnic Studies Dr. Raphael “Ralph” Grajeda Fellowship
Claire Jiménez
Institute for Ethnic Studies Rev. Dr. Michael Combs Award
Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship
Women’s and Gender Studies Karen Dunning Scholarly Paper/Creative Activity Award
Isaac Essex
National Awards
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant
Claire Jiménez, co-PI with Enrique Olivares Pesante, Ricardo Maldonado, and Raquel Salas Rivera, for “El proyecto de la literatura puertorriqueña/The Puerto Rican Literature Project”
Nebraska Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Nonfiction
Saddiq Dzukogi
Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing
Editing Press Laura Bassi Scholarship for Junior Academics
Isaac Essex
EGSA Awards
Excellence in Teaching Award (Ph.D.)
Excellence in Teaching Award (M.A.)
Outstanding Service Award
Star Professor Award
Readings by Graduate Contest Winners
Kate Gaskin
Sunita Jain Award for Excellence in Poetry
Books by Faculty & Graduate Students
May 2021 - April 2022
Sensing Willa Cather:
The Writer and the Body in Transition
The Reading Protocols of Science Fiction: Discourses on Reading SF
James Gunn, edited by Michael R. Page
Transnational Modernity and the Italian Reinvention of Walt Whitman, 1870–1945
The Perfume Thief
TransNarratives: Scholarly and Creative Works on Transgender Experience
Kristi Carter and James Brunton, eds.
Flight Risk
Dirty Knowledge: Academic Freedom in the Age of Neoliberalism
The Changeling:
The State of the Play
Kelly Stage and Gordon McMullan, eds.
The Body Family
Outback and Out West:
The Settler-Colonial Environmental Imaginary
Tom Lynch