Seniors, submit your essay to win one of these three library prizes
Yale Library is accepting entries for three library prizes awarded each year for outstanding senior essays. Any senior essay submitted to a Yale academic department during the 2022–23 academic year is eligible. The library may announce more than one winner for any of the prizes, based on the quality of submissions.
Prizewinners receive a $500 award, which is presented during Commencement ceremonies at the recipient’s residential college. Winning essays are published on Eli Scholar, the library’s open-access publishing platform for Yale researchers.
The Diane Kaplan Memorial Senior Essay Prize
The Kaplan Prize is awarded to a senior essay that is substantially based on research in any of Yale Library’s special collections.
In 2022, the Kaplan prizewinners were Sam Battles, Davenport College, for “Paper Sons and Chosen Families: Blurry Archives and Non-Biological Kinship in the Chong Family Album”; Sarah Gannett, Davenport College, for “‘A Cascade of Shifts in the Brain’: Kay Ryan’s Poetics”; and Madeleine Stern, Pierson College, for “‘The Language of Our Dreams’”: James Baldwin’s Project of Identity Formation on Paper and Film.”
Review the submission guidelines and submit your essay by Monday, May 1, at 5 p.m. EST. Faculty and others may encourage students to apply, but students must submit the essays themselves to be considered.
The Harvey M. Applebaum ’59 Award
The Applebaum Award is awarded to a senior essay that relies on materials from any of the government depository collections. The collections encompass government documents and information for Canada, the European Union, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the United Nations, and the United States. In 2022, prizes were awarded to Joelle Besch, Pierson College, for “An Evaluation of the UN CEDAW Individual Complaints Mechanism” and to Debbie Dada, Pierson College, for “Structural Violence & Small Victories: Political Epidemiology of HIV among MSM in Nigeria, 2000–2010.”
Review the submission guidelines and submit your essay by Wednesday, May 10, at 11:59 pm EST (midnight). Essays may be submitted for consideration by the student author or by the student’s faculty advisor.
The Library Map Prize
The Library Map Prize is awarded for the best use of maps in a senior essay or its equivalent. In 2022, prizes were awarded to Ethan Treiman, Ezra Stiles College, for his essay “Constructing Colma”; to Evan J. Parker, Morse College, for his essay “An Assessment of Geographic and Taxonomic Biases in Research on Climate Change-Related Range Shifts”; and to Max E. Teirstein, Saybrook College, for his essay “An Index of Community Priorities to Inform Local Governance in New Haven.”
Review the submission guidelines and submit your senior essay by Wednesday, May 10, at 11:59 pm EST (midnight). Essays may be submitted for consideration by the student author or by the student’s faculty advisor.
Read more about last year’s winners of the Kaplan Prize, the Applebaum Award, and the Library Map Prize.
