Undergraduate Prizes

Undergraduate Paper Prize

GSWS sponsors each year an award of $200 for the best undergraduate paper related to gender, sexuality, and women's studies.  Entries must have been prepared initially for a course, seminar, independent study, or internship at this university and should represent the student’s original work. Entries may be revised from their original form with acknowledgement, in the cover sheet, of assistance received from an instructor or Writing Center tutor. Creative writing papers may also be submitted, but a critical reflection on the piece must also be included. 

All entries for this prize must be 8-25 pages in length and must have been prepared within the last year. Submissions will be judged and awarded by a panel of judges drawn from GSWS and University faculty. Papers will be reviewed without the author’s name or affiliation. The GSWS Program reserves the right not to award a prize.

Our Undergraduate Paper Prize cover sheet must be submitted with a copy of the course assignment and the paper, with all identifying information about the author removed from the paper. Entries for the next competition will be due Monday, May 23, 2022, at noon.

Information about past winners of this prize can be found here.

Iris Marion Young Awards for Political Engagement

The Iris Marion Young Awards for Political Engagement honor undergraduate and graduate students and staff and faculty members who have done meaningful work on behalf of social justice.  In collaboration with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, GSWS created the award to honor those who work to promote justice in the University, at the local or national level, or across the globe. Like the philosopher and social theorist Iris Marion Young, in whose memory the award is created, the Young Award recognizes that social activism takes many forms. Justice can be pursued in a variety of ways and places—in the classroom and workplace, in organizations, through specific projects, in academic scholarship, in politics and volunteer work. The venue doesn’t matter. The effort and quality of the contribution does

Nominations for the awards are invited every fall, and the winners are honored at a ceremony open to the community.

LGBTQIA+ Endowed Research and Outreach Fund

The LGBTQIA+ Endowed Research and Outreach Fund supports undergraduate and graduate student research and community work.  GSWS is the institutional home for the funds, but the funds are intended for students throughout Pitt and represent a community investment in LGBTQIA+ scholarship and outreach work. Applications for funding can be made through PittFund$Me.  The first year in which the funds have been awarded is 2022.