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Student Prizes and Organizations
History Department Student Prizes and Awards
Every year the faculty award a number of prizes to outstanding history majors at various stages in their studies. We list them here to give you incentive to work toward them.
Jack Crandall Award in History: The $425 award recognizes an outstanding sophomore history major with a GPA of 3.5 or higher in the major. It honors a former professor in the department (1948-85), a specialist on United States history who also led the Peace Corps training program on campus and served as academic vice president.
W. Wayne Dedman Award: The award recognizes an outstanding graduate student with a GPA of 3.5 or above and who must be matriculated and have completed at least 18 graduate credits at the end of the spring semester of the award. The award usually consists of a book. It honors a Distinguished SUNY Teaching Professor in the department (1945- 1976) who wrote the first history of the College.
Department Scholar in History: The award recognizes a senior history major, usually with the highest GPA, all other things being equal.
Robert R. Griswold Award in History: The $150 award recognizes an outstanding junior or senior history major with a GPA of 3.5 or above in history. It is named for a former professor in the department who specialized in African history.
Arthur M. Lee Award in History: The $100 award recognizes an outstanding senior with a GPA of 3.5 or above. It is named for a former professor in the department (1957-1974) who specialized in European history and taught western civilization.
Kempes Schnell Award in History: The $500 award recognizes the outstanding full-time history major, any class, with GPA of at least 3.25 in the major and with a pressing financial need. Preference is given to a senior accepted to graduate study in history at SUNY Brockport or any other post-graduate professional program at the college. It honors a distinguished former professor in the department (1963-1988) who pioneered courses on the US Civil War and the history of violence.
George S. Queen Essay Award in History: The $150 award recognizes the author of the best undergraduate essay. It honors a distinguished former professor in the department (1943-1968).
Graduate Award in History: This is a full-tuition fellowship with a stipend for a first-year graduate student. It was endowed by an anonymous alumnus of the MA Program.
Phi Alpha Theta - The National History Honors Society
Phi Alpha Theta is one of the oldest disciplinary honor societies and has a scholarship program for members, as well as a scholarly journal. To qualify for membership, undergraduates must have completed 18 credits in history with a minimum 3.3 GPA in their history courses and 3.25 overall. Graduate students must have finished 12 credits with a minimum 3.5 GPA.
The main activities of our chapter of Phi Alpha Theta take place in the spring. We invite qualified students to join, and we hold an awards ceremony inducting them as a group into the society. Family members are encouraged to attend. We also send a few students each spring to the western upstate New York Phi Alpha Theta student conference. This is a chance for students to present their research and writing to an audience of peers and is an especially good thing to do for those interested in graduate school.
The History Forum
The History Forum is the BSG club open to all students, especially history majors. Its main objective is to promote history as a fun and interesting major and to create a closer relationship between students and their professors. In recent years the Forum has organized student vs. faculty Trivial Pursuit contests and film nights with faculty introductions to the movies. It has also sponsored visits from several leading historians in the US to give special lectures. Forum members have also been able to use BSG money to travel to the Organization of American Historians conference, held each March or April in a major US city.
The Forum meets once a week in the late afternoon during semesters in the Fishbowl (105C FOB). There is a mailbox in the department workroom if you’d like to leave a note for the Forum leaders. Officers are elected annually.
