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Awards

Wilson Essay Contest and Sturm Research Prize

The John D. Wilson / Phi Beta Kappa Essay Contest

The Mu Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa invites applications for the John D. Wilson Essay Contest to recognize excellence in undergraduate writing. The selection committee will award a prize of $500 for the best analytical or interpretive essay. 

All interested undergraduate students should read the rules carefully before submitting to the prize. 

Contest Rules:

  1. The essay for this contest should be an analytical or interpretive composition posing an argument or presenting a point of view. It must be written for a well-educated lay audience. Essays are limited to 3,000 words in length.
  2. The submitted essay must be the original work of the author, written while the author was an undergraduate at Virginia Tech. Work previously presented for academic credit is eligible.
  3. The student must be enrolled as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech during spring 2026 in order to be eligible for the prize.
  4. Students may submit only one essay each year.
  5. Prior recipients of this prize and essays that have won major Virginia Tech writing prizes are ineligible for the competition.
  6. Submissions may not be fiction, poetry, drama, a web site, highly technical, only a report of empirical research, or only a review or synthesis of the existing literature on a subject. The committee reserves the right to reject submissions that, in their opinion, do not constitute essays.
  7. Submissions must be in DOC/DOCX or PDF file format; double-spaced in Times New Roman 12-pt. font; and contain page numbers in the upper right-hand corner.

Essays will be judged according to the following criteria (1–6):

  1. Insightful, thoughtful, and knowledgeable discussion.
  2. Coherence of the argument
  3. Clear, logical organization
  4. Forceful, fresh, compelling, and competent prose
  5. Comprehensibility to the well-educated lay reader
  6. Accurate spelling, punctuation, grammar, and proofreading

Phi Beta Kappa reserves the right to withhold the award if none of the entries meets contest standards and to rescind any award if the winning essay is later shown not to conform to Contest Rule 3, 4, 5 or 6 above.

A cover letter must include the following information:

  • Name
  • Email address
  • Undergraduate class year and anticipated graduation date
  • Major(s) and College(s)
  • Title of Essay

Letter must include the following statement: I certify that the attached essay is my own work and was written while I was an undergraduate student at Virginia Tech. This essay is entirely my creation and no form of generative artificial intelligence was used to write the essay.

The cover letter must be signed (an electronic signature or typed name is acceptable). The author’s name should not appear anywhere in the essay. Please email (1) cover letter and (2) essay as two separate attachments to Amber Smith, Chair, by the deadline, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. Please include "Wilson Contest (Nominee’s Last Name)" in the email subject field. Questions may be directed to Amber Smith or Tom Ewing.

The Albert Lee Sturm Award for Faculty Excellence

The Phi Beta Kappa Sturm Awards honor the memory of Albert Lee Sturm (1911-1998), a founding member of Virginia Tech’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and a University Research Professor in Political Science. Through these awards, the Mu of Virginia chapter recognizes excellence in research and in the creative arts performed by our university’s faculty. The award for creative arts will not be offered in 2025-26; only the research award will be accepting nominations.  

The Sturm Awards honor excellent work that is recognized as significant by a wider, educated audience, not just a narrow group of specialists. Previous creative arts awards have gone to original works of fiction and poetry, musical compositions, stage and lighting design, and an intermedia arts project. Books recognized by the research award have spanned the humanities, sciences, and social sciences on topics ranging from Moses to Darwin to the White House staff.

Awards consist of cash prizes to be presented at the Phi Beta Kappa spring initiation ceremony.

Who may be nominated?

Virginia Tech faculty (full- and part-time, tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure track, active and retired). Nominees need not be members of Phi Beta Kappa.  

What may be nominated?

Work should be nominated within three years of its original publication, presentation, or exhibition. A work may be nominated more than once. Recipients of the award must wait at least five years before submitting another work for consideration.

Who nominates?

Appropriate department-level committees (e.g., personnel, promotion and tenure, executive) or department chairs/heads. Self-nominations and nominations from colleagues are also accepted.

How to nominate?

The deadline for nominations is Tuesday, March 3, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. 

To nominate a faculty member and their creative work, please prepare one file (PDF or DOCX preferred) with the following items:

  1. Letter of nomination that points out the significance of the work’s contribution to liberal learning and its appeal to wider educated audiences. In the first paragraph of the letter, please include the following elements:
    • Name of Nominee
    • Department/Program of Nominee
    • Title of Nominated Work
    • Date of Publication
  2. Current curriculum vitae of the nominee;
  3. Reviews may be included, but are optional.

Enclose with the above materials as a separate file:

A copy of the work (PDF version of the book, offprint(s), photocopy) or a high-quality representation of the work (photographs, video or audio recording, etc.)

Send one electronic copy of the completed packet by email to Ashley Shew with a Subject Line that indicates this is for the Sturm Prize. If you need to send a physical copy of the book or other materials through campus mail: Ashley Shew, Chair, Sturm Research Prize Committee, STS (0247), Lane Hall.       

Address questions to Tom Ewing, President, Phi Beta Kappa Chapter, Virginia Tech.