Every year, AMCS seeks to recognize academic excellence with The Lynne Cooper Harvey Undergraduate Writing Prize, which acknowledges outstanding writing on a topic in American culture. We look for essays and research papers that that reveal analytical depth and agile multidisciplinary thinking, and we are particularly interested in work that demonstrates innovative interpretation of sources, methodological sophistication, and creative conceptual framing. This award carries a cash prize of six hundred dollars.
This year, we are happy to announce the winners of the 2018 Lynne Cooper Harvey Undergraduate Writing Prize are Hannah Wallach (AMCS major and May 2019 grad) and Anand Chukka (AMCS major and Dec 2018 grad) for their co-authored paper, “Addressing a Tension Between Structural Inequity and Individual Agency in School-to-Prison Pipeline Discourses: The SPOT at Jennings as a Primary and Secondary Intervention.” Congratulations!
The Writing Prize Selection Committee reviewed many strong papers, but Hannah and Anand’s stood out as well-organized and well-situated not only within previous studies and literature on the school-to-prison pipeline but also within the community at Jennings and in St. Louis at large. Their use of public policy as a framework with which to understand the seemingly disparate strands of individual agency and structural constraints gave shape to a complex issue and worked beautifully to illustrate how a unique school-based health center with a trauma-informed focus is one of the solutions to disrupting the STPP. Hannah and Anand’s personal interview with Dr. Garwood was crucial to understanding how Dr. Garwood has success subverting the STPP with a trauma-informed approach, and their integration of personal interview with robust list of secondary sources are all part of what made their paper this year’s prizewinner.
