The Don Rothman Endowed Award in First-Year Writing

Don Rothman, a leading voice for writers and writing during a distinguished 39-year career at UC Santa Cruz, founded the Don Rothman Endowed Award in First-Year Writing. The award honors the achievements of one or more first-year students in the genre of nonfiction, academic, analytic writing, and recognizes excellence in writing pedagogy.

• Camille Vergely

  

  Writing Program, Anthropology

  2021-2022 Don Rothman Endowed Award in First Year Writing -First Place

  "Growing Up on a Dying Planet"

• Loki Malak

  Writing Program, Literature/Feminists Studies

  2021-2022 Don Rothman Endowed Award in First Year Writing -Second Place

  “Lesbian Community: Confusion or Connection?”

  Loki Malak is the founder of Violet Dykes and a Feminist Studies/Literature double major at UCSC. He uses he/they pronouns and is proudly a butch lesbian. They spend most of their time working with the Lionel Cantu Queer Resource Center or Violet Dykes to enact boots on the ground activism. Their areas of interest right now are queering masculinity, queer joy, and fun.

• Camille Lagunera

  Writing Program, Film and Digital Media

  2021-2022 Don Rothman Endowed Award in First Year Writing - Third Place

  "From Splendor in the Grass to Sexploitation: The Sex Revolution of the 1960s in American Cinema"

• Julia Spilman

  Writing Program, Molecular Cell Development Biology

  2021-2022 Don Rothman Endowed Award in First Year Writing - Honorable Mention

  "Aphantasia: An Unusual Blindness"