2009 Seaton Essay Awards Announced

The annual Seaton Essay Competition is judged by an interdisciplinary panel of faculty and students. This year, we had over twenty essay submissions. In the middle of April, posters advertising the contest were placed around campus, and the contest details were e-mailed to all instructors. The contest was open to all students. The judges were people from different disciplines who enjoy the diverse topics of the essays and the dedication of the writers.

Winners of the Awards:

· Ashley Caggiano—First Place—“Same Old Hell”
Ashley is an English major with a focus in rhetorical composition. She will be graduating this Spring Quarter. She has spent all four years at Newark and “loved every one.”

· Chris Metcalf—Second Place—“Tragic Death of Romanticism”
Chris a freshman finance major who loves to read classical/canonical literature. His love for reading as well as writing reveals the value he places on a wide breadth of knowledge.

· Elizabeth Varrasso—Third Place—“Guilty by Ethnicity”
Elizabeth plans to teach history in high school before she pursues a Ph.D. in History. She would like to write professionally before and after she gets her degrees.

Names and Positions of the Judges:

Dr. Julie Hupp—Psychology
Dr. Adrian Rodgers—Education
Dr. Elizabeth Weiss—English
April Sears—Student Judge
Dr. Laura Younger—Award Director--English
 

Submissions now being accepted for the sixth annual Seaton Essay Competition
 

About the award: The Seaton Essay Award, to be given for the best undergraduate essays from Ohio State Newark courses, was established to honor former colleague Beverly Seaton, who was one of Ohio State Newark's earliest faculty members, serving the Newark Campus from 1964 until her retirement in 2001. This annual essay competition is sponsored by the Ohio State Newark English Program. First place: $150; second place: $100; third place: $50. Award-winning essays also will be recognized at the annual "Salute to Undergraduate Achievement" dinner in May, and may be published in Taproot, the annual collection of student work from the Newark campus.

Eligibility: Original essays written by individuals while enrolled in any Ohio State Newark undergraduate course, regardless of academic discipline, are eligible for the Seaton Essay Award competition. Approval of the instructor of the course for which the essay was written is not required for submission. Essays may be informative, investigative, critical, argumentative or speculative in nature.

Submission: To be entered into the competition, an essay must be submitted electronically, as a Word document, to the Writer's Studio at the following email address: osunws@osu.eduu. A standard cover sheet (see below) must accompany each essay. Do not include your name on the essay.

Cover Sheet: Download the standard cover sheet form by right clicking on the link, choosing "Save Target As" or "Save As", saving it as a file to your computer, opening and filling out the file, and sending it as an attachment accompanying the essay file. Both files can be attached to one e-mail.

Deadline: Entries for this year's Seaton Award must be submitted by May 7, 2010. Essays written within the previous 12 months (i.e., from Spring Quarter of the previous year through Winter Quarter of the current year) will be eligible.
 

---

About Beverly Seaton Beverly Seaton graduated from Keuka College in Keuka Park, New York, in 1956 and came out to Ohio State University in Columbus for graduate school in 1957. She earned an MA and a PhD from Ohio State. In fall quarter 1964 she took what she thought was a temporary job at the Newark Campus, where she was the first full-time instructor, teaching night classes at the elementary school next door to the old Newark High School, which was being demolished. Her specialty was nineteenth-century American literature, but her publications were in the general field of popular culture studies. Her book, The Language of Flowers: A History, was published in 1995 by the University Press of Virginia. Before she retired in 2000, she saw tremendous growth in the campus, not only in the physical plant but also in the programs offered. In the 1990s a four-year program in English was added, and she had the pleasure of seeing students she had worked with for four years graduate.