Each year the Writing Program awards several prizes to our first-year students for outstanding work in WRIT 2/5, WRIT 5, and the First-Year Seminars.
Albert I. Dickerson, for many years Dartmouth's Dean of Freshmen, took great interest in First-Year Composition. In his memory, a prize has been established which will be awarded annually to students who write outstanding expository essays in a WRIT-5, WRIT 2-3, and First-Year Seminar, as decided by a committee of Writing Program faculty.
The First Year Excellence in Writing Award, made possible by the Arthur Feinstein 1955 Memorial Fund, is for "the best piece of writing by a first-year student in one of the first-year writing courses."
This award is drawn, by a committee of faculty judges, from the single best essay of all those essays that are nominated for the Dickerson Prize, so any essay submitted for the Dickerson Prize is automatically considered for the Feinstein Award. With both these prizes, therefore, the essay must first be nominated for the Dickerson Prize.
All instructors in any first-year writing course may nominate for the Dickerson Prize one essay from each section of writing that they teach. For all of the Dickerson categories and all terms, the essay must be submitted by the instructor, with an acknowledgement that the student has consented to have the essay submitted, no later than June 15. The instructor should also attest that the nominated essay is the draft of the essay that the student submitted for the class; further revisions are not permitted.
Faculty may contact writing.program@dartmouth.edu to request the link for submitting nominations.