Medallion of Excellence

The Edward McGrath Medallion, the English Department’s Medallion of Excellence, is awarded to one graduating senior each year. The 2006 Medallion of Excellence winner is Emily M. Trovato.

Previous Winners:

2006 - Thomas Emerson
2005 - Kathryn M. Rutigliano
2004 - John Durnin
2003 - Mari Grace Crosby
2002 - Michael Foley
2001 - Kristin Suga
2000 - Christine Anderson
1999 - Thomas McKinley
1998 - John Giordano and Megan Norcia
1997 - Lisa Tomaszewski
1996 - Mark Spoonauer
1995 - Kelly Beissel

English majors have also been honored with the Saint Thomas More Award, the Medallion of Excellence for the Honors Program:

2006 - Molly Grace
2001 - Corinne Welsh
1999 - Maria Sadowski

The Jerome J. Fischer Memorial Award

The Jerome J. Fischer Memorial Award is given annually to the most distinguished undergraduate essay written in a Villanova English course. The Fischer Award honors Jerome J. Fischer, who taught nineteenth-century British literature courses, as well as a variety of other courses, at Villanova from 1947 until his retirement in 1983. He died in 1984.  (For details about the 2008 essay competition, click here.)

Emily Trovato, winner of the Jerome J. Fischer Memorial Award, is a senior from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania majoring in English and Honors with a minor in Spanish. While at Villanova, she has been a volunteer tutor through the Rays of Sunshine program since her sophomore year. In addition, she has been an English-Spanish interpreter intern with the VU law school's clinical program. She has also worked with many other students as a Better World Books representative to organize and run book drives that have funded over $4,500 in scholarships and materials for underprivileged Nepali and African students. Her project has also kept over 5,000 books from landfills. She will attend Loyola College in the fall to work towards a Masters degree in Montessori Education, and she plans to teach elementary age students in a Montessori school after graduation. Her award winning essay entitled, "Claiming a Revisionary Voice in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dictee," was written for Prof. Lisa Sewell's "Women Poets and Feminist Theory" class.

Previous Winners:

2006 - Stephen Cornell
2005 - Kristy Wessman
2004 - Mark Napolitano
2003 - Valerie Kate Fernandez
2002 - Rebecca Corcoran
2001 - Michael Foley
2000 - Corinne Welsh
1999 - Jennifer Joyce
1998 - Cara LaColla
1997 - Chris Eagle
1996 - Wendy Anne Tucker
1995 - [not given out]
1994 - Michael DiRuggiero
1993 - Rosemary Scalo
1992 - Mary Kovalchick
1991 - Peter Naccarato
1990 - Sarah Pines
1989 - Anne Marie Ryan
1988 - Jon Lemole
1987 - Jill Stevens

The Margaret Powell Esmonde Memorial Award

The Margaret Powell Esmonde Memorial Award is given annually to the most distinguished graduate essay written in a Villanova English course. The Esmonde Award honors Margaret Powell Esmonde, who taught at Villanova from 1974 until her death in 1983. She was a specialist in Renaissance literature who also taught courses in science fiction and children’s literature.  (For details about the 2008 essay competition, click here.)

Rebecca Burnett, winner of the Margaret Powell Esmonde Memorial Award, is completing her first year in Villanova’s graduate English program. She received her undergraduate degree in 2003 from Swarthmore College with a major in English, a minor in Education, and a Pennsylvania certification to teach English at the secondary level. During her junior year, she studied abroad at Oxford University. She was also inducted into Swarthmore Phi Beta Kappa honor society. She currently teaches Upper School English at Germantown Academy where she is the Assistant Director of the Writing Center. Her award winning essay entitled, "His office was indulgently to fit/actives to passives": Passive Power in Donne's Songs and Sonnets," was written for Prof. Lauren Shohet's "Seventeenth Century Poetry" class.

Previous Winners:

2006 - Karen Y. Lee
2005 - Marc Napolitano
2004 - Victor Sensenig
2003 - Deborah Gross
2002 - Brian Sweeney
2001 - Patricia Crouch
2000 - Laura Giuliani
1999 - Sharon Cournoyer
1998 - Marc Schuster
1997 - Mary Ann Quigley
1996 - Robert Duggan, Jr.
1995 - Gale White
1994 - Gale White
1993 - Daniel Hipp
1992 - Helen Goff
1991 - Sr. Elaine Marie Glanz, I.H.M.
1990 - Katrien Conlan
1989 - Janet Wallin
1988 - Anne Gallagher
1987 - Gregory Sullivan
1986 - Ellen Wilmot

Senior Class Poet

The Senior Class Poet is chosen each year on the basis of a portfolio judged by an outside poet.

The Senior Class Poet for 2007 is Lauren Linkowski. Two of her poems follow.

Migration
In the parking lot of a Motel 8 in Mobridge,
we are eating dry oatmeal for breakfast by the handful,
slouched in the bed of the blue Ford pickup Julie borrowed
from the guy who lives in a trailer on her host family's farm.
We lean against the frigid steel truck box,
with the blanket we stole spead like a cloud ove rour legs.
A gallon milk jug of water passes between us.

Across route 47, a gas station sags in the loitering chill.
The rainbow fumes rise like a phoenix from the ash dry asphalt,
and we resume our flight to the warmth we have heard
gathers in the rocky folds of southern Wyoming.

"Only 50 miles to Wall Drug!:
The signs flap by.
"It's good to be 50 miles from somewhere"
Sarah is unexpectedly crying.
"But don't you just want to know where you are?"

We do stop at Wall Drug and its thin flock of early tourists,
flitting through the hive of stamped belts and shot glasses.
Sarah cocks cowboy hats over her eye and gigles.
The clerk smiles when he sees Julie's tattoo,
"El Camino" scripted on her thigh.
"Where you girls from?"
We glance at each other and shrug.
I buy a calico bird fetish that promises me good luck.

Back in the now sweaty truck it is my turn to drive.
I hang my cloth bluebird on the dash,
coax the clutch to catch.
Sarah and Julie crank down the windows,
and light cigarettes with a fireplace lighter found under the seat.
The smoke trails in ribbons
as I snap on the radio.

I put on red lipstick in the rearview
as the road reaches out its dark hand to me.
"Gotta hot date?" Julie lifts an eyebrow.
The music scratches and crackles like a fire.
If I have been  unkind, I hope you can just let it go by
I put the truck in gear as if to say
I forgive you the emptiness,
the getting lost, the never being able to stay
if you can promise
more birds, more movement, more heat.

This Side of the River
The smoke detector the government ordered
has a lifeless nine volt in its chest.
She, the old imchi, believes in her heart
that a lost bird blesses her house.

Her great grandfather hunted buffalo
before he signed the Fort Laramie treaty.
At the Golden Buffalo casino,
a brown boy brews at a vinyl side table,

leaves the waitress a one dollar tip.
His water class is dead centered on the green
paper grimace of George Washington.
The boy must be pinning him down,

so that the eagle on the other side can jab his back
with arrows, herd him from his home, and proclaim

"'As long as grass shall grow and rivers flow'
this is ours and you must leave."
 

Previous Winners:

2006 - Patrick Bering
2005 - John Tecklenburg
2004 - Cecilia Barr
2003 - Jennifer Zeltman
2002 - Sarah Carley
2001 - Christopher Steib
2000 - Ted Poecker
1999 - Kim Davis

The Literary Experience Essay Award

The Literary Experience Essay Award is given each semester to the best papers written for English 1050.

The Fall 2006 winner is Jennifer Latz. Her winning essay, “Diversity in Literature: A Consideration” was written for Prof. Gail Ciociola’s class.

Fall 2006 honorable mention goes to Daniel Manning for “Mountains and Rivers without End: Where Do You Stand?,” written for Prof. Trudi Graves' class.

The Spring 2006 winner is Christina Park. Her winning essay, “A Lesson from the Abuse of the Imagination,” was written for Prof. Trudi Graves' class.

Previous winners:

Fall 2005 - Stephanie Cody
Spring 2005 - Christian Skonier
Fall 2004 - John Zurbach
Spring 2004 - Emily Trovato and Kerri White
Fall 2003 - Nadia Nauss
Spring 2003 - Monica Borgone
Fall 2002 - Adrienne Sanetrik
Spring 2002 - Elizabeth Micklow
Fall 2001 - Matt Nespoli
Spring 2001 - Matt Varga
Fall 2000 - Michael Knerr and Ryan Zitnay
Spring 2000 - Andrea Flood
Fall 1999 - Kate Schramm
Spring 1999 - Jocelyn Trufant
Fall 1998 - Megan Knecht

English Honor Society 2007

Varsha A. Abraham
Angela S. Allan
Erin M. Arizzi
Christine M. Barnes
Joanna L. Bowen
Haley K. Bownik
Jennifer E. Burke
Stephanie A. Bruno
Colleen R. Comerford
Jessica A. Corbett
Kristen A. Delia
Jane E. Donahue
Madeline M. Dorger
Daniel M. Gardner
Molly E. Gron
Jessica E. Hopkins
Catherine E. Hostetter
Regina M. Ingiosi
Kristen J. Janski
Lauren E. Kadel
Meghan B. Kenny
Elizabeth T. Kreider
Lindsay M. Martin
Karl Mason
Claire Mitchell
Jaya Mohan
Alexander C. Olden
Christine A. Raia
Bridget E. Salmons
Derrick A. Shallcross
Brian R. Stamile
Allison M. Taylor
Emily M. Trovato
Daniel E. Trucil
Brittany S. Ward
Meghan B. Welteroth
Lisa Werner

Phi Beta Kappa English Majors

2007

2006

Megan M. Adzima
Monica K. Borgone
Allison Ford
Charles Girard
Aimee M. Laussen
Nadia E. Nauss
Jessica L. Remo
Jillian C. Wohlfarth
Emily M. Trovato

2005

Jennifer Heger
Jacqueline Lebowitz
Juliet Mazer-Schmidt

2004

Cecelia Barr
Marc Napolitano
Matthew O’Malley
Krista Pietrangelo