Florence Mason Palmer Memorial Prize
Established in 1958
Description. The Florence Mason Palmer Memorial Prize is awarded for the best essay of up to 5,000 words dealing with some aspect of international relations. Open to women undergraduates only. For complete information read the General Rules.
Prize Amounts. A total of $5,000 is awarded at the judge's discretion. Federal financial aid regulations require that all awards received by a student can not exceed their financial aid need as determined by a congressional formula. It is possible, therefore, that the cash award for a prize could reduce some component of a needy student’s package of financial aid awards. In these cases, the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office attempts first to reduce loan or work aid; fellowships, grants, or scholarships are only reduced as a last resort.
Deadline. Submissions must be hand-delivered by the author to the Undergraduate Scholarships, Prizes, and Honors Office, 220 Sproul Hall, no later than 4 p.m on December 1. The author's name must not appear on the entry.
Advice from a previous judge:
When submitting papers for prizes, I strongly urge students to double- and triple-check papers for grammar, spelling, and proper citation. I recommend doing this even if the student received a high grade on their paper in a course. As a judge, I do not award prizes to papers that have consistent problems in these areas and, as basic as it seems, I have seen a number of them. In addition to being top-quality papers intellectually, papers should be well-written (stylistically and grammatically), and citations should conform to one of the many accepted styles laid out in style manuals. Some common mistakes I've seen:
- no page numbers in citations or citations otherwise incomplete
- citations appearing in the text but not the bibliography
- tables or charts that aren't properly labeled (for example, axes not clearly indicating what they are measuring)
- sloppy grammar and spelling
- when using in-text citations, putting the period before the parentheses (so that the citation appears as the first item in the next sentence)
2010-11: 9 entries; No recipient was selected for 2010-11
2009-10: 7 entries; 3rd prize only, Ryan Cohen ($500)
2008-09: 5 entries; Roushani Mansoor, Sarah Weiner, and Lauren Powell ($1,500 each)
2007-08: 4 entries; The judge decided that no essay was worthy of a prize
2006-07: 4 entries; Hasina Badani ($2,000)
2005-06: 10 entries; Elizabeth Mattiuzzi and Julia Gin ($2,500 each)
2004-05: 10 entries; 1st prize Nancy Si-Ming Liu ($3,000); 2nd prize Gabriela Maguire ($2,000)
2003-04: 10 entries; 1st prize Henluen Wang ($300); 2nd prize Deepa D. Shah ($200)
2002-03: 9 entries; 1st prize Kristina Kempkey ($300); 2nd prize Lily Bradley ($200)
2001-02: 2 entries; 1st prize Whitney Ward ($500)
2000-01: 2 entries; Not awarded
1999-00: 6 entries; 1st prize Aeryn Seto ($2,300)
1998-99: 12 entries; 1st prize Arianne Chernock ($1,000)
1997-98: 8 entries; No 1st prize awarded; 2nd prize awarded to Kathleen Mikulis ($800)