Announcing our 2021-22 student scholarships & awards

After a two-year hiatus due to the Covid pandemic, the English department gathered in person this spring for our annual awards reception honoring our outstanding majors, minors, and graduate students.

We met in a Davis Field tent to recognize our student leaders, Honors in English students, Sigma Tau Delta inductees, and Phi Beta Kappa initiates, and to announce our student awards and scholarships, which are listed below. 

The Robert N. Shorter Medieval Prize: Lillian Remler

Robert N. Shorter, who passed away in 2021, was the principal medievalist in the English department for 41 years, from 1958 until 1999. Professor Shorter was one of the founders of the Medieval Studies program and minor. His legacy as an exemplary professor, colleague, and mentor is what we hope to uphold in the Wake Forest Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program. 

H. Broadus Jones Shakespeare Prize: Marilla Morrison & Lexi Zyskowski

H. Broadus Jones Memorial Scholarship: Chris Keiser

H. Broadus Jones Senior Award for Excellence in English: Katie Wooten

H. Broadus Jones M.A. Student Award for Excellence in English: Jensen Kirkendall

H. Broadus Jones was professor and chair of  English for many years. He taught Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, and Victorian poetry at Wake Forest for much of the first half of the 20th Century. The Shakespeare Prize award recipient is a student whose oral and written work shows the greatest insight into Shakespeare. The H. Broadus Jones Memorial Scholarship was set up in 1972 by his family in his memory to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of our rising senior majors. And each year a graduating senior and a Master’s student whose work exemplifies Jones’s spirit of scholarship and dedication to the study of literature are chosen to receive the H. Broadus Jones awards for Excellence in English. 

D.A. Brown Award for Excellence in Creative Writing: Crystal Zhao

D. A. Brown Award for Excellence in Writing (awarded Summer 2021): Sophie Lee (Writing 111), Marina Velasco (Core Literature Category), and Lauren DeMarco & Katie Bullock (Upper Division Literature Category)

The late D.A. Brown was a member of the English department for many years. He was noted for his high standards, and on his retirement, a fund was established to recognize excellence in writing. The Creative Writing program began offering awards in his honor in 2016 to students who show talent in the art of creative writing. The D.A. Brown Excellence in Writing awards are given out each summer to students who have written outstanding papers in our English and Writing 111 courses. 

The Bynum G. Shaw Prize in Journalism: Connor McNeely; Finalists: Christian Odjakjian & Mingxuan Zhu

The Bynum G. Shaw Prize in Journalism honors Bynum Shaw, a 1948 Wake alumnus and professor of journalism. At his retirement in 1993, friends, colleagues, and former students contributed to a fund to endow a graduation prize in his name. They wanted to memorialize a man who encouraged his students to think of themselves as writers and to try to publish inside and outside the college community. 

The Beulah Lassiter Raynor Scholarship: Madison Head & Marilla Morrison

This award is named in honor of Beulah Lassiter Raynor, who taught in the English department from 1946 to 1979. The award has been endowed by her friends and former students, and recognizes outstanding rising senior majors from small towns in North Carolina.

Emily Crandall Shaw Scholarship in Liberal Arts: Katie Bullock

Emily Crandall Shaw and her husband Bynam Shaw, who was a professor of Journalism at Wake Forest, were Wake Forest alumni. After Mrs. Shaw’s death, Mr. Shaw set up this scholarship in her memory to recognize outstanding rising senior English majors who show talent in arts as well as in literary study.

Justus and Elizabeth C. Drake Scholarship: Rose Donaldson, Connor McNeely & Declan Sander

Justus Drake was a professor of English at Wake Forest for a number of years. He taught American and Victorian literature. His wife Elizabeth was the administrative assistant to President Scales. The Drakes’ sons were Wake Forest alums, and they set up this scholarship in their parents’ memory to recognize the outstanding accomplishments of our rising senior majors.