Opportunities

Scholarships

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) About the Scholarship/Award Application Process

No. You should apply for all scholarships for which you might qualify. Where possible, use the same information for both (for example, the application for a Regnery Scholarship and a Senior Scholarship are virtually the same, with the exception of the sample paper requirement for the Regnery).

HOT TIPS TO CREATE A WINNING APPLICATION

• Don't wait until the last minute! Give your application packet a whole week to arrive.
• Recommendations-give your recommenders PLENTY of time to compose their recommendations. Be sure they understand the length limits, that their recommendation should not be sealed, and what the judges are looking for (testimony of academics and service). Some applicants request more than the two required recommendations and then choose the best two for their packet!
• Proofread your application thoroughly!
• Order your transcripts early, and stack them from most recent to least recent when you create your packet. Be sure your most recent transcript shows a cumulative gpa (graduate students may need to provide a cumulative undergraduate and graduate gpa).
• Applicants for the Graduate Scholarship MUST provide documentation that they are presently enrolled in a graduate program in English. A current transcript with a list of the courses the applicant is taking during the semester he/she applies would provide such documentation.
• Thoroughly proofread your application again!
• Scholarship and award applicants: take note of when your chapter will meet ahead of the Dec. 4 deadline-members must vote on your application, so you must have your packet of original information compiled prior to that meeting!
• Double check to be sure that everything in your final application packet is in the correct order.
• Ask your chapter sponsor, or someone else who can be trusted to be good at it, to proofread your application one more time!
• Scholarship and awards applicants: personalize your convention theme application essays. Judges enjoy reading these and getting to know you. They especially appreciate the myriad ways students approach the same topic. Be creative, but keep the essay under the 400-word limit!
• Do NOT stray from the formatting guidelines! Use the fonts, margins, spacing and typesizes given. Packets that ignore these conventions will not be considered.
• Somerville Future Teacher Awards applicants: the judges hold you to the same high standards of academic excellence and service as all other applicants, if not more so, because you will be teaching and reaching future generations. Good proofreading and its end product, a clean application, will go far toward impressing them!
  

  Applicant Checklist

  • Pick up application form(s) from sponsor
  • Note STD deadline(s) here -___________________________________________
  • Note deadline for chapter approval here - ___________________________________________
  • Contact references for recommendations

  Received ___________________________'s recommendation

  Received ___________________________'s recommendation

  • Send for transcripts (list others as needed)

  Rec'd transcript from _________________________________________

  Rec'd transcript from _________________________________________

  Rec'd transcript from _________________________________________

  Rec'd transcript from _________________________________________

  • Type up Application Information
  • Create Application Essay
  • Provide Sample Paper (Portfolio), if required
  • Provide Conference Program, if necessary
  • Have sponsor proofread application
  • Make revisions and proofread again
  • Put all parts of application in correct order
  • Put correctly formatted copy of Application Essay for Rectangle submission (if you have/choose that option) on bottom of packet
  • After chapter approval, make the appropriate numbers of copies, collate and put your application in the mail or send it by delivery service so it arrives before the deadline
    

    Sample Essays

    The following essays were finalists or winners of the Best Short Essay Award from a 1999 Scholarship or Award Application.

    Finalist

    Two events come to mind as I consider this theme. The first occurs with unfortunate frequency; the second, unfortunately, has happened only once. Occasionally, as I share with people the fact that I am an English student, someone interjects, with a supercilious mixture of pride and condescension, that they have never read a book their high school teacher did not force them to read. For some of these people high school is a distant memory. I find this unfortunate because, while I am comfortable talking about movies and TV, and have traveled all over North America and Japan, ninety-nine percent of the truly exotic places I have been or intriguing people I have met have been in the pages of a book. Tolkien, St. Paul, Twain, Atwood, Card and Grisham comprise a small survey of those who have taken me on trips to places, times, and thoughts I would never have known otherwise. Those who do not read excuse themselves from the grand discussion of humanity.

    The second event occurred while I was a student teacher working under the most successful high school English teacher I have ever met, John Guertin. One day after school, during one of our routine bull sessions, John walked over to the board and wrote, "understanding-analysis-expression-." After a long pause he said that we had succeeded in bringing our students this far. He congratulated me on a good semester and then asked me what we should be trying to accomplish after that last dash. I had thought that the last dash was an error so I was caught off guard. I had no answer. He said that our students could understand the books we had them read, critically analyze them, and then explain their analysis on paper. I asked him what he thought should follow that last dash. He said that that was where students learn to create. It was our job to get them there, but not to tell them what to create.

    Those who choose not to read ignore the past altogether. Those who do read and then write clear analytical responses to what they read write the present. Those few who, based on their reading and analysis, can find something new to write on paper create the future.

    --Grantley Gibbons
    Alpha Epsilon Phi
    College of Charleston

    ---

    Winner

    Reexamining the title for the upcoming convention, I am struck by how deeply this theme is embedded in the work that we do at the university every day. As a person who both studies and teaches English, in fact, I feel especially aware of and intricately connected with the ways in which past, present, and future converge significantly in literature and writing courses, and I would like to share a few of the implications of such convergence I have noticed in this regard.

    For much of the present century, some of the most significant movements have embraced the notion that we need not cling to the past in order to look forward. Modernist movements, whether in the arts, or technology, or other areas, tend generally to repudiate the past. In literary analysis, the dominant school for much of the century, the New Criticism, focuses attention through close reading on the text itself, while simultaneously rendering historical grounding as little more than incidental. Despite the obvious significance of close reading, we might note that theoretical trends prior to the New Criticism and more recent poststructural trends challenging it are rooted in an awareness of the past and its relation to literature. I submit that, resist as we might, we cannot escape the past: as Seneca put it two thousand years ago, "What's past is never past." The very act of reading literature brings some conflict, emotion, or idea from the past (whether two or two hundred years ago) into our present consciousness. In that sense, no matter what critical approach we use, whether we view literature as possessing universal value or as functioning within a particular historical context, an awareness of "reading the past" is essential for any student or teacher of literature.

    While "reading the past" to me emphasizes the role of literature within our discipline, the phrases "writing the present" and "making the future" immediately make me think of my students. Students in writing classes often wonder why teachers make them "write their guts out," and literature students likewise question why they need to read so much. I try to emphasize to them that no matter what path they choose to pursue after they complete my class, our experiences in the discipline of "English" instill and refine us in critical thinking, reading, and writing skills that we may apply to every facet of our lives.

    --John Kerrigan
    Epsilon Rho
    University of Nevada/LasVegas

    ---

    
    Finalist

    As a child, I remember reading beside my mother, following along as she read the story of Ferdinand the Bull who only liked to sit under the shade of the cork tree and smell flowers. I remember developing an early fascination with words, loving the way they looked on the page or sounded when spoken. I remember struggling through school with English, a subject I adored but couldn't quite seem to handle just yet. And then I remember the day when it finally all clicked, when the merging of my past, present, and future appeared above my head like the proverbial light-bulb. It was then that I realized how important words had always been to me, and how important they were now and in the future, not just to me, but to my children and the students I would teach.

    My childhood affection for words is the first element I consider when looking toward the past. That affection turned into a lifelong obsession with the written word, prompting me to read, write, and discuss literature in and out of the classroom. My appreciation for the literary heritage left to me has guided me down a wondrous path where a love of reading turned into a love of writing. From clumsily structured junior high fantasies to academic papers which analyze rhetoric, my work has developed at a continued pace. The more I write, the more I learn how to express myself, my thought, and my ideas.

    As I pursue my studies using information technology, my understanding of the past and present merge to form ideas for the future. By using computers to analyze texts, producing concordances of words, tagging bibliographic information, and engaging in discussions through online discourse communities, I realize the potential power and danger of technology for teaching, learning, and loving the written word in our future. Will teachers and texts be replaced in the classroom by a machine? Will the canon be redefined by what is accessible via information technology? There are no clear-cut answers to this growing dilemma, yet a respect for machines and a love for the word combined now guide me toward a new path to take in my academic career, where I can embrace all that I have learned before and all that I learn now, while looking ahead to the twenty-first century.

    --Marianne Woodward
    Nu Nu
    Bowie State University

    ---

    
    Finalist

    I remember my twelfth grade English teacher vividly, with her dark hair and an Irish name I thought lovely . . . Ms. McKiernan. She was a whirlwind of activity in the classroom, always pacing, gesturing, and laughing during lectures. She managed, even on Mondays, to draw our A.P. English class into exhilarating discussions about the social critiques of Jane Austen or the romanticized Celtic lore of an early Yeats. She was often quite amused at her friends' lack of understanding concerning the teaching profession. After all they would jokingly remind her, they had real jobs. All she did every day was talk about books. She would smile as she told us this, elaborating,

    "But you and I know that I'm the one with the truly enlightening job here. Yes, I discuss books but its so much more than that. It is all of the hope, fragility, tragedy, and joy of the human experience. What could be more important than that?"

    Ms. McKiernan's perception of literature came back to me as I read the theme of this year's Sigma Tau Delta convention. She was so right. There is no pursuit more ennobling than the study of the written word, which has inspired multitudes of people throughout countless generations. To me, this year's theme captures the essence of the cyclical nature of literature. Today we are still reading novels, poetry, and plays that were written in the past. The power of the written word has sustained itself throughout history, achieving immortality through its universal truths. To be a great writer is a fierce task. Writers are creators; they are the makers and molders of the imagination, artists who are able to deliver ideas and experiences with a rare power and creativity. By reading the great works written throughout the ages, we glean a better understanding of our past and ourselves that is so necessary in order to write the present more effectively. In keeping with this cyclical nature of history and literature, it is remarkable to think that the classic literature of our generation will also be read by a legion of future generations. Perhaps that is why the words of my high school English teacher still have such a powerful impact on me. It has been and always will be the writers who, through the permanency of the written word, bring beauty and insight to the world and in doing so create the legacy of the future.

    --Jennifer Winslow
    Phi Xi
    University of Alabama

    ---

    Winner

    Reading the past, Writing the Present, Making the Future. These are three phrases that belong together and in this order. I emphasize belong and order because of the natural links between reading, writing, making and past, present, future. Often it seems that our age promotes looking on the past with disfavor as a realm of dead Eurocentric men. This logic casts aside the truth that human beings never really change, only circumstances do. The literary world proves this as characters love, quest, imagine, dream, triumph, fail, behold the vision and die. One monolithic theme encompasses all of this: the human condition. We are the past, and the past is us. If we bungle our reading of the past, then we mar the present and distort the future. We make the great mistake: reading the past in anger and vengefully writing the present as revision.

    Literary artists allude to their predecessors, making literature a web of human interconnection. When we exile ourselves from this tradition, we deny ourselves a certain wholeness, egotistically suggesting that we can create an improved "web." We essentially say, "Our world owes nothing to outdated and ideologically unsound works of past artists; they exhibited too many imperfections, and we, the enlightened, do not." Each work of art aligns, I think, to form a path that represents the search for paradise. Whether a text be optimistic, pessimistic, or nihilistic, it springs from either longing for paradise or lamenting banishment from paradise. Rejecting the past causes wild vines to overtake the cleared path, furthering us from paradise as future. Writing the present in light of reading the past as our own struggle for existence is the only prevention against the future making us.

    Do we make the future with texts? Yes, but as mentioned before, every future is a past in different circumstances. So if we attempt to wrench the future from the past, we make ourselves artificial, denying our own history, declaring independence from ourselves. We guild ourselves anew, demonstrating that impulse toward artificiality defining our age, becoming clones of our own making, a strange blend of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. Artificially, we prefer the Web of computerspeak to the "web" of humanity. Paradise in a hollow, 3-dimensional box?

    Read the past as prologue to the chapter "Present," so translating "Future."

    
    --Lori Jones
    Alpha Epsilon Phi
    College of Charleston

    ---

    Winner

    One of the most extraordinary things about Mama was her age. She was born in 1936 and lived most of her life in a country devastated by war and poverty. It was a country she hated because of war and loved because it was home.

    I would sit at Mama's feet listening to her tell her stories; and as her voice flowed over and through me, in the sing-song tones of her Vietnamese tongue, I would give complete attention to words, accented by her unique, expressive face. Mama's eyes allowed me to read her past. When she would tell me, at the end of many stories, that I was lucky to be in America, I could see the painful and yet joyful past she left behind. I could see the culture she adopted over the years and the shock that came when she first arrived. Then, I could see her homeland glistening in her tired, aged eyes. Glistening like a vivid dream, waiting to be reached.

    Since being on my own, I bring a journal whenever I visit Mama. More often than not, after her tales, I pull out that tattered brown book, resign to the kitchen table, and write. During my last visit, Mama asked me why I write so much. I wanted to give her an answer that would sum it all up-all the drumming in my heart, all the stirring of emotion, all the reasons why-and so I answered "to remember." I then looked down at the white spaces and wrote: "To remember all the reasons she is who she is, and the strength it takes to get there."

    I heard boiling water simmer, then whistle through Mama's kettle. I watched her make tea and fill the room with a light aroma that intermingled with Asian spices.

    My mother is my muse. She inspires me more often than the sun, moon, or stars. She touches a deep part of me and in her I find the ability to be a strong woman, to fight for my dreams-dreams that glisten in my young eyes. Through her stories, her past, her self, I find my way, my goals, my future. I find the courage and strength to work hard for what lies ahead. I know that because of her I am here, reading the past, writing the present, making the future.

    --Belinda Wells
    Alpha Delta Zeta
    California State U/Fullerton

    ---

    Finalist

    Despite the monumental advances of video technology, the written word continues to hold steady as our greatest bridge through time. Through reading the past, we know what it was like to watch the gladiators of ancient Rome, or how it felt to be the first Americans committed to achieving democracy. Although the newsreel footage in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" adds visual realism to the theme of war, the movie can't compare with Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage for its over-all depth and authenticity.

    Almost all great writers have been great readers. Emily Dickinson read Shakespeare, Keats and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Hermann Melville read Thomas Carlyle. Katherine Anne Porter attributed her education almost entirely to reading Henry James, James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. These great writers gathered the best of the past, and then incorporated and honed it with their own experience into the cutting edge of their own literary era.

    To write the present, to be on the cutting edge of one's culture, places the writer on the threshold of both the past and the future. Little did Shakespeare or Melville foresee the extent of their literary immortality and the millions of copies of their work which would be sold world wide. Kate Chopin might likewise be surprised that women reading "The Story of an Hour" in the year 2000 empathize with Louisa's struggle against domination, and that domestic inequality yet exists in the new millennium.

    Not only does the writer of the present give voice to the personal, universal experiences of their time, but also to the collective. Themes such as the Holocaust haunt us because humankind remains vulnerable to the same type of thinking that allows senseless persecution. Writers, such as Flannery O'Conner, won't let us forget that thinking. By presenting us with another variation of the same theme, as in "The Displaced Person," she has given us another tool for self-examination.

    In this way, by having the ability to influence the thinking of future generation, the writer helps to make the future. Young readers seek to emulate characters whom they admire, and they find strength in the ways that these characters cope with their environment. For adults, reading often promotes cross-cultural understanding which is imperative to a world which is increasingly in demand of tolerance.

    
    --Lille Norstad
    Alpha Epsilon Pi
    University of New Mexico

Scholarships for Members

Sigma Tau Delta presents a variety of international scholarships each year. Chapters may nominate one member to apply for each of the Junior, Senior, Graduate and Study Abroad Scholarships, worth $2,000 apiece. Additionally, chapters may nominate one member for the Regnery Scholarship, endowed in 1992 in honor of Henry Regnery, the noted publisher. This $2,500 scholarship is given to an outstanding student scholar. In addition to the scholarships, runners up in each category are presented with $500 awards.

The Central Office sends an application packet to every chapter in September. Additional application forms may be photocopied, obtained from the Central Office, or downloaded via this web page. Applications should demonstrate both academic scholarship and chapter service.

Before receiving their stipend, recipients are required to provide proof of registration in at least 50% of a full load of courses as part of an English degree program. Should winners not be able to provide such verification at the beginning of the fall semester following their application process, their awards will be presented to alternates. Awards are usually determined by March 31 and typically are announced at the annual convention.

• The Sigma Tau Delta Junior Scholarship (E. Nelson James Scholarship) is given to a student member applying during the junior year. Dr. James served as second Executive Secretary of Sigma Tau Delta and Editor of The Rectangle.
• The Sigma Tau Delta Senior Scholarship (Elva Bell McLin Scholarship) is given to a student member applying during the senior year (winners may be enrolled as 5th year seniors or graduate students when they receive their stipend). Dr. McLin served as Southern Regent and National Historian of Sigma Tau Delta.
• The Sigma Tau Delta Graduate Scholarship (Edwin L. Stockton, Jr. Scholarship) is awarded to a current graduate student who will be continuing in graduate school. Dr. Stockton was the fourth National President of the Society.
• The Henry Regnery Endowed Scholarship does not require applicants to be in a specific year of college. This scholarship was endowed in 1992 in honor of Henry Regnery, founder of Regnery Publishing, Inc., in Washington, DC.
• The Sigma Tau Delta Study Abroad Scholarships are for active undergradtuate members studying for an academic term or year in a certified undergraduate program outside of the country in which their chapter is located.

Address questions to 1999-2000 STD Scholarship Committee Chair Peter Scholl schollpe@martin.luther.edu

  Awards for Individual Members

In addition to scholarships, Sigma Tau Delta has many awards for qualified student members of the society. These awards are given annually in the areas of teaching, writing, conference paper presentation, and web site construction.

The Central Office sends an application packet to every chapter in September. Additional application forms may be photocopied, obtained from the Central Office, or copied from these web pages.

• Web Site Awards

• P.C. Somerville Awards for Future Teachers
• President's Awards
• Scholarly Paper Awards

 
 Internships

• Regnery Publishing Internship

William C. Johnson, Executive Director
Sigma Tau Delta
Department of English
Northern Illinois University
DeKalb, Illinois 60115-2863
815-753-1612
Email: sigmatd@niu.edu

Outstanding Sponsor Awards Nomination

About the Awards

Criteria

Judging

Nomination Procedures

1. The Sigma Tau Delta/Elaine W. Hughes Outstanding Sponsor award is given annually to recognize a sponsor who gives generously of his or her time, talents, and creativity to a local chapter. The award recognizes a sponsor and mentor who fosters a spirit of scholarly exchange in the local chapter. The award is named in honor of Elaine W. Hughes of the University of Montevallo, former Southern Regent, Vice President, and President of Sigma Tau Delta.

The recipient of the award will receive a $500 check from Sigma Tau Delta and a commemorative plaque.

2. The Sigma Tau Delta Outstanding Regional Sponsor awards are given annually to recognize a sponsor from each region who gives generously of his or her time, talents, and creativity to a local chapter. The award recognizes a sponsor and mentor who fosters a spirit of scholarly exchange in the local chapter.

The recipient of the award will receive a $100 check from Sigma Tau Delta and a commemorative plaque

Criteria

1. Prior to nomination, the nominee must have served for three consecutive years as sponsor of an active chapter.

2. A nominee cannot have received the award in the past three years.

3. A nominee must not be serving as a member of the Board of Directors at the time of nomination

Judging of the Nominees

1. The Central Office will verify active chapter status.

2. Judges will be the members of the Chapter Development Committee (Student Advisors and Student Representatives).

3. Those advisors not chosen for the Hughes award will be considered for the Outstanding Regional Sponsor awards. Chapter members need submit only one nomination letter.

4. The winners of the Hughes award and the Regional awards will be announced at the International Convention in March.

Nomination Procedures

1. Chapter members may nominate their advisor by submitting a nomination letter. Each chapter may nominate only one advisor each year.

2. The nomination letter, which should not exceed 1000 words, must include the following information:

(a) a statement describing the nominee's contributions as a faculty advisor;

(b) the length and dates of service as a chapter advisor and, if applicable, as a member of any Sigma Tau Delta regional or national committees (or Board);

(c) the size of the chapter and the number of English majors/minors in the college.

3. Submit 5 copies of the letters of nomination.

4. Letters should be mailed to the Sigma Tau Delta Central Office:

         William C. Johnson, Executive Director
          Sigma Tau Delta
          Department of English
          Northern Illinois University
          DeKalb, Illinois 60115

5. All entries must be postmarked by: 3 December, 1999

Call for Submissions

Elizabeth Holtze, Editor of Publications
Department of English, CB32
Metropolitan State College of Denver
Box 173362
Denver, CO 80217-3362
Email: holtzee@mscd.edu