Share Your Achievements for the
CAS 2020-2021 Awards Competition!
Dear CAS Undergraduate Students,

The annual Arts and Sciences Awards Ceremony provides special opportunities for the College of Arts and Sciences and its faculty to acknowledge some of the outstanding work completed by students in the College. This is an opportunity for you to share the work you accomplished in the past year in the Humanities, Natural Sciences and Mathematics and/or Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Visual and Performing Arts.
 
We are accepting entries for this year’s undergraduate student award ceremony. You should e-mail your submission to cascareers@fairfield.edu. Entries will be judged on quality and originality. Submissions should be carefully presented by referencing the submission notes below.  
 
Please note that the selection committees are seeking quality work in a variety of forms, completed in the past 12 months:

Projects in the Humanities focus more on critical/analytical work; past entries have included literary criticism, film criticism, philosophical essays, and theological essays. (Note: student work in such areas as poetry, journalism, and fiction, even if done in a Humanities class like English, should go to the Visual and Expressive Arts category, below.)

Projects in Natural Sciences and Mathematics, past entries often featured work done with a faculty mentor in which the student has contributed significant creative input. 

Projects in Social and Behavioral Sciences focus on pertinent social phenomena; past entries have included original historical or social science analysis, and they have used both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Projects in Visual and Expressive Arts focus more on creative expression; past entries have included poems, fiction, creative non-fiction, journalism, painting, music, sculpture, photography, performances, screenplays, multimedia presentations, film and video productions, and exhibits.

The deadline for entries is Monday, March 29. If you have any questions about a potential entry, feel free to contact any of the chairs listed below or Brittany Lenig blenig@fairfield.edu, Operations Coordinator in the Dean's Office.

Humanities
Silvia Marsans-Sakly (Chair)
Maggie Labinski
Sebastian Perez
 
Natural Sciences & Mathematics
Shawn Rafalski (Chair)
Matt Kubasik
Pierre Christian
 
Social & Behavioral Sciences
Adam Rugg (Chair)
Janie Leatherman
Jessica Karanian
 
Visual & Expressive Arts
Suzanne Chamlin-Richer (Chair)
Claudia Calhoun
Brian Torff
Submission Notes:
  • Students can submit only one entry per category, but they can enter multiple categories.
  • A portfolio of work can be submitted as a single entry.
  • A group of students that has collaborated on a project may submit a single entry. Any award received would be shared by all participants.
  • If the project involves a presentation, performance, exhibit or similar public endeavor, the applicant should consider inviting the members of the appropriate Awards Review Committee to attend.  
  • Applicants may be asked to attend a brief Q&A session about their submission.

If you have supplemental material that cannot be included as an attachment, such as particular film or video projects, please contact cascareers@fairfield.edu to determine the best way to drop off your materials at the Dean's Office. (For film and video entries, one option is to upload the project to a site like Vimeo and include a link and/or password submitted by email through the normal submission process).  Regardless of how you submit these materials, you should still email a cover page document as directed below.

All submissions should be accompanied by a cover page that includes the following information:
  1. Names of all authors/contributors  
  2. Email addresses of all authors/contributors  
  3. Class year of all authors/contributors  
  4. Major of all authors/contributors  
  5. Campus Box of all authors/contributors  
  6. Contact phone number of all authors/contributors  
  7. Award you are applying for (select one of the following: Humanities, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, or Visual and Expressive Arts.)
  8. Course (if any) project was completed as a part of.
  9. Project Title  
  10. Description of project not to exceed 100 words.  

For projects in which a faculty member has supervised, collaborated with or mentored a student, the applicant must submit a letter from the faculty member that explicitly describes the creative and/or original contribution of the student. It is a letter of description, not recommendation. These letters can be attached to your project submission or emailed separately to cascareers@fairfield.edu. If your entry is in the natural sciences or mathematics, the faculty letter should address the following questions: 
  • Was the research project your idea or creation? Provide a statement that clarifies your role in the development of the research question or objective.
  • What were your independent research goals at the beginning of the project and were they accomplished?
  • What were the most difficult problems you encountered in your work and how did you address them? (The problems could be procedural or analytic.)
  • Was the project part of a larger research project? If so, what was your contribution to the research design, study execution, data analysis, manuscript writing and creation of visual aids such as graphs and figures used in your project submission?  
  • Did you contribute, discover or develop a new technique, approach, application or observation?
Entries must be submitted by Monday, March 29, 2021. Entries should be emailed to cascareers@fairfield.edu. All entries should be electronically submitted. Please feel free to direct any questions about the process to Brittany Lenig at blenig@fairfield.edu.

Students whose entries are chosen will be asked to attend a virtual celebration in April.

We are looking forward to reviewing your wonderful accomplishments.

Kim Nickolenko, Director of Career Engagement
College of Arts and Sciences
(203) 254-4000, ext. 2227