Maggie McFadden Essay Prize
The Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies Program at Appalachian State University invites submissions for the inaugural Maggie McFadden Prize for Best Undergraduate Essay in Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies.
This prize, established in 2025, is named for Maggie McFadden, who joined the faculty at Appalachian State University fifty years ago in 1975. Dr. McFadden taught the first women’s studies class at the university in 1976. In addition to her work as a program-builder, she had a distinguished career as a scholar and editor, including of the NWSA Journal (today called Feminist Formations), the journal of the National Women’s Studies Association, which was housed at Appalachian from 1997-2003. This prize honors the original research, fluent writing, interdisciplinarity, and public commitments characteristic of Dr. McFadden’s work and the field of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies.
Essays of 15 or fewer pages that were initially composed for any course housed in Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies (in other words, courses with a GWS prefix) in 2024 are eligible for consideration for the 2025 award. Revised versions will be accepted. The winner will receive a $150 prize and an award certificate; the winner’s name will also be inscribed on a perpetual plaque.
Please submit eligible essays, along with a brief cover letter identifying the writer of the essay and the course and semester in which it was initially written, to Emily Lutenski, Director of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies, at lutenskies@appstate.edu. The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2025. The winner will be announced in mid-April.
If you would like to donate to the Maggie McFadden Fund for Women’s Studies Student Development, which supports this prize and other opportunities for GWS students, you can do so online by navigating here and searching for “McFadden” under “Fund Choice.” You may also give by check, which is payable to “App State University Foundation,” designating “M. McFadden Women’s Studies Fund” in the memo line. Checks can be submitted to Advancement Services, PO Box 32014, Boone, NC 28608.