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Department of

English

Undergraduate Awards and Prizes

Williams Prize

2024-2025 Williams Prize

Established in 1908 by Edward H. Williams, professor of geology and mechanical engineering, the Williams Prizes recognize outstanding work in writing and performance. To be eligible for the prizes, all work submitted must have been completed in a Lehigh course or internship and written after the date of April 1, 2024 with direct or indirect supervision by Lehigh instructors.

Considerations:
In your file upload, ensure your personal information is removed from the file. This includes your name, class name, faculty member who assigned project, etc. Submissions will be rejected if identifying information is not removed. 

  • Only material written by you for a Lehigh course may be submitted.
  • Only essays completed after April 1, 2024 are eligible.
  • Presidential Scholars are not eligible.
  • Limit: two entries per category.
  • Essays generated using ChatGPT and other forms of generative artificial intelligence are not eligible
  • No entry may be submitted more than once.
  • Submissions are due by March 31, 2025

Competition Categories:

  • Business & Economics-Analytical Writing
  • Business & Economics-Short Essay
  • Creative Writing-Fiction
  • Creative Writing-Non-Fiction
  • Creative Writing-Poetry
  • English-Composition-Students in First-Year Writing
  • English-Critical Essay Written by a First-Year Student not in the First-Year Program
  • English-Composition by Sophomores
  • English-Composition by Juniors
  • English-Composition by Seniors
  • English-Multimodal-Students in First-Year Writing
  • History, Political Science, International Relations
  • MLL-Critical Essay Arabic/Chinese/French/German/Japanese/Russian/Spanish
  • Music-Composition
  • Philosophy
  • Religion Studies
  • Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology

Additional Categories:

  • General news writing
  • In-depth or investigative reporting
  • Feature writing
  • Opinion writing
  • Internship or practicum portfolio
  • Research Paper (5-20 pages)
  • Research paper (21-100 pages)
  • Video
  • Photography portfolio
  • Design portfolio
  • Multimedia project

Contact Professor Matt Veto for the above categories

  • Theatre

Contact Deb Laub for the above category

Winners for the 2025 Contest 

Archive of past years' programs, including lists of winners:

 

Kachel Prize 

The Kachel Prize was established by Robin and Allan B. Kachel '71 to celebrate student writing. Six awards are given each year, four by the Department of Journalism and two (those here) by the Department of English.