First-Year Writing
2020
- 1st Place: Valentina Horn “Growing Up O-Town Style“
- 2nd Place: Ryley Macdonald “Idahomies: Skateboarding Subculture Analyzed Within the Community of Boise“
2019
- 1st Place — Jailynn Flaack-Sanchez “Everybody Loves Integration”
- 2nd Place — Sarah Doyon “The Connection between Appropriation and Affinity Spaces”
- 3rd Place, honorable mention — Ellie Wells “Gun Violence Personified: The History of Claire Wilson”
2018
- 1st Place — Luise Wislow “Analysis of the State of the Water”
- 2nd Place — Rebecca Bettencourt “The Science Behind Sleep Paralysis”
2017
- 1st Place — Stephanie Hamilton-Rubio “Si Se Puede, Si Lo Haremos: Yes We Can, Yes We Will”
- 2nd Place — Kim Dueno “What the Phage?”
2016
- 1st Place — Kerri Hart “Growing Stuff in My Basement”
- 2nd Place — Brittany Picker “Euphemisms and Public Behavior”
2015
- 1st Place — Birgit Phelps “Documentary Photography and Dignity”
- 2nd Place — Karyn Levin “Bringing High School Back to Life”
2014
- 1st Place — Cora Barnes “Nonverbal Behavior and Communication in Autistic Individuals”
- 2nd Place — Jordan Osborne “Fear and Loathing on Our Minds”
2013
- 1st Place — Diana Arbiser “From Hoarding to Landfills: Managing Waste”
- 2nd Place — Hailey Vik “Party Yourself into Shape”
2012
- 1st Place — Madison Hansen “Awakened by ‘The Awakening’: A History of Kate Chopin’s Novel and Its Personal Influence”
- 2nd Place — Chuck Clapsaddle “Homeless Veterans”
2011
- 1st Place — Jamie Lundergreen “Starbucks: The Ultimate Gentle Giant”
- 2nd Place — Emery Ross “To the Stars”
Foundations of Ethics and Diversity (formerly Civic and Ethical Foundations)
2020
- 1st Place: Eric Ramirez “Student Governance: An Ethnographic Study“
- 2nd Place: Nabil Rahman “Stress: The Harsh Reality of International Students“
2019
- 1st Place — Nitya Bhargavi Nukala “Living Inside My Mother’s Dreams”
- 2nd Place — Emma Cummins “Gain Knowledge of Refugees, Be Proactive”
- 3rd Place, honorable mention — Jason Hathhorn “Truth as Supreme Ethic”
2018
- 1st Place — Mone’t Alberts “What is your race? Check ONE.”
- 2nd Place — Cade Yates “Black Tar? More Like Blacks-Tarnished”
2017
1st Place — Tiffani Goodell “Value-Based Ethics: Why I Voted Independent in the 2016 Presidential Election”
2nd Place — Jordan Hartmann “Advocating for Adolescence”
2016
- 1st Place — Samantha Headley “Every Sixth of a Sixth”
- 2nd Place — Jason Kyle “The Day I Decided Killing a Helpless Man Was the Right Thing to Do”
2015
- 1st Place — Andrew Ridgeway “The Fair Labor Association: Fair for Who?”
- 2nd Place — Jessica Miceli-Dodd “Into Focus”
Critical Analysis
2020
- 1st Place: Georgia Zacest “Between the World and Me: A Searing Account of American Reproductions of Racism“
- 2nd Place: Benjamin Sargis “When Victimhood Doesn’t Go the Distance: Narrative Criticism Meets the Pacific Coast Trail“
2019
- 1st Place — Aly Sebright “Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Nella Larsen’s Passing: An Exploration of Performed Identity”
- 2nd Place — Kate Carter-Cram “Writing Centers: Silencing the Student Through Language”
- 3rd Place, honorable mention— Jeffrey Cates “Poverty Delivered: How Rent-To-Own Businesses Make the Poor Poorer”
2018
- 1st Place — Evan Fishburn “Finding the Perfect Souvenir: Where Commodities and Orientalism Meet”
- 2nd Place — Logan Potter “The Best of Both Worlds”
2017
- 1st Place — Lex Nelson “Shakespeare’s Yosemite: The Forest of Arden in As You Like It”
- 2nd Place — Kirby Carlson “The Professional Veneer Versus Revelation”
2016
- 1st Place — Andrew Ridgeway “Tunnel of Privilege: Interpassivity as a Political Performance”
- 2nd Place — Connor Liess “A Born Suicide: Analyzing the Death of Vladimir Mayakovsky and His Poetry”
2015
- 1st Place — Andrew Ridgeway “When Species Meet: Human Exceptionalism in James Cameron’s Avatar”
- 2nd Place — Heath Kemper “‘If You Fight Against God’s Enemy:’ Representations of Good and Evil in Richard III and Henry V”
2014
- 1st Place — Jennifer Brooks “The Repression of Dream Work”
- 1st Place — Taylor Kerns “Fathoms Deep: On Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea as a Map to Gender Identity Struggle”
2013
- 1st Place — Madison Uhlenhof “Entertainment or Authenticity: The Other as Represented for Youth”
- 2nd Place — Cheryl McKell “Negotiating Melville’s Cretan Labyrinth”
2012
- 1st Place — Lyn Uratani “Evolving from Traditional to ‘Reversed’ Otherness: Agnes; Postcolonial Transformations in Louise Erdrich’s. The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse”
- 2nd Place — Jacob Westerfield “Myth and McCarthyism: The Role of American National Identity in Film”
2011
- 1st Place — Tess Grover “Shylock and Javert: The Conflict between Moral Exactitude and Mercy in Law”
- 2nd Place — Jesse Rosenthal “Everyone’s Extraordinary Evil”
Research Based
2020
- 1st Place: Kimber Wymore “High Rent, Low Pay, and Nowhere to Go: The Affordable Housing Crisis“
- 2nd Place: Sara Rostron: “Repressive Coping and Irritability Incidence in Bipolar Disorder“
2019
- 1st Place — Colin Branham “The Saints Were Sinners: The Mormon Question and the Survival of Idaho”
- 2nd Place — Kate Benfield “Volumetric Wear Analysis of Meniscus Degeneration”
- 3rd Place, honorable mention— Heather Kimbrell “Haole Morsel to Hawaiian Mainstay: How Hawaiian Macadamia Nuts Became Iconic through 19th Century Plantation Economy”
2018
- 1st Place — Amanda Pham Haines “Demystifying the Model Minority Mythology”
- 2nd Place — Lacy Harness “The Process of Inventing Fictional Languages”
2017
- 1st Place — Alex Knudson “The Father of the String Quartet”
- 2nd Place — Jenna Farmer “Effects of Nutrient Availability on Growth Rate and Carrying Capacity of Lemna Minor”
2016
- 1st Place — Andrew Ridgeway “The True Price of Bronco Pride: Confronting the Sweatshop System”
- 2nd place — Brenda Forrey “Responding to an Active Shooter on Campus: A Critical Need to Prepare Students, Faculty, and Staff at Boise State University”
2015
- 1st Place — Alaggio Laurino “The Grieving Woman”
- 2nd place — Ryan Wright “A Delayed Sensation”
2014
- 1st Place — Brian M. Lawless “Study, Analysis and Interpretation of Stream Data, Geologic, and Geomorphic Features of Selected Streams in the Boise Foothills”
- 2nd Place — Rebecca Carter “Ann Landers’s Advice and the Sexual Revolution”
2013
- 1st Place — Joshua Casaos “The Role of BTLA and LIGHT in a Mouse Model of Pulmonary Fibrosis”
- 2nd Place — Melissa Whiteley “In or Out of the Comfort Zone: Gender Preference in the Writing Center”
2012
- 1st Place — Jenna Nash “Sprawl”
- 2nd Place — Jessica Ewing “Oratory in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”
2011
- 1st Place — Levin Welch “Ethnographic Introduction of Coping in a Timber-Dependent Community”
- 2nd Place — Evan Sesek “Palestine: Racism and Apartheid in the 21st Century”
Creative Nonfiction
2020
- 1st Place: John Barrie “The Unseen”
- 2nd Place: Jessica Kendall “Limbo“
2019
- 1st Place — Pania Tkachenko “The Other Woman”
- 2nd Place — Rebekah Gunderson “Ammophila”
- 3rd Place, honorable mention — Kathleen Williams “Landfill”
2018
- 1st Place — Emily Lanagan “In Memory of White Rain Soap”
- 2nd Place — August McKernan “Jelly Donuts”
2017
- 1st Place — John Barrie “Richard Spencer is a Friend of Mine”
- 2nd Place — Sheri Grow “On Being Schooled”
2016
- 1st Place — Joseph Wayment “Addictive Memories”
- 2nd Place — Lex Nelson “The Promise of Tastykakes”
2015
- 1st Place — Mindy Hubbard “Valley Fever”
- 2nd Place — Lantz Brown “A Walk Around the Block”
2014
- 1st Place — Pamela Craig “Mining for Monahan in Idaho: The Truth/Untruth about Josephine/Johanna/Joe/Jo”
- Second Place — Mitchell Lewis “Playing without Fear”
2013
- 1st Place — Kristine Dukes “Batman’s a Liar”
- 2nd Place — Cindy Sikkema “The Truth About Lies”
2012
- 1st Place — Kristine Dukes “Breaking up with God”
- 2nd Place — Pamela Craig “Conserving the Desert of the American West”
Fiction
2020
1st Place: Cichaya Gidley “Lavender Haze”
2nd Place: Lyd Havens “A Song of Many Sounds“
2019
- 1st Place — Andi Rados “For You”
- 2nd Place — John Barrie “Rebel”
- 3rd Place, honorable mention — Allie Chambers “Tinker”
2018
- 1st Place — Pania Seeley “The Lines Between”
- 2nd Place — Cat Bullock “The Sea Maid and the Starfish”
2017
- 1st Place — Dillon Haws “They Shall Inherit the Earth”
- 2nd Place — Pania Seeley “Night Blindness”
2016
- 1st Place — John Barrie “Comitatus”
- 2nd Place — Morgan Ackley “Organic Therapy”
2015
- 1st Place — Daniel Calderon “Paper Mâche”
- 2nd Place — Tim Atwell “Nightcall”
2014
- 1st Place — Lacey Rowland “All We Need”
- 2nd Place — Andrew Murphey “Bear”
2013
- 1st Place — Marri Champié “Cat’s Garden”
- 2nd Place — Margaret Koger “Handy Girl”
Poetry
2020
- 1st Place: Alfredo Ocaranza Gonzalez “Exodus”
- 2nd Place; Lyd Havens “Eurydice & all my worst fears“
2019
- 1st Place — Priscilla Reyna “Cry Baby”
- 2nd Place — Lyd Havens “Pulped”
- 3rd Place, honorable mention — Lianne Collins “At the Library, a Woman Studies”
2018
- Michael Hassoldt “The Way Home”
2017
- 1st Place — Dillon Haws “Pentad”
- 2nd Place — Lex Nelson “Breakfast for Two”
2016
- 1st Place — Gage Tellaria “Jump Start”
- 2nd Place — Jordan Osbourne [Canine Calaveras]
2015
- 1st Place — Emily Paige Erickson Untitled [What Games these gulls]
- 2nd Place — Darby Ebeling Untitled [peace v]
2014
- 1st Place — Jerri Benson “Luminous”
- 2nd Place — Trevor Thomas “Orange Groves”
2013
- 1st Place — Noel Cower “Yggdrasil”
- 2nd Place — Marri Champié “Fishing Indian Creek”
Multilingual
2020
- 1st Place: Eric Ramirez “Transgenerational Oppression against Transgender People“
- 2nd Place: Bibiana Ortiz: “Cultural and Societal Reflections“
2019
- 1st Place — Ali Mustafa “The Change of Heat”
- 2nd Place — Jesús Rivera Orozco “Autobiography of a Language Ideology”
- 3rd Place, honorable mention — Bibiana Ortiz “W.E.B Du Bois Theoretical Profile”
Personal Essay
2011
- 1st Place — Josef Firmage “Spartan Decisions”
- 2nd Place — Deena Trouten “My Grandmother’s Name was Marvel”
Writing in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics
2012
- 1st Place — Mike Nielsen “Reducing Energy Loss in Water Heating Systems: An Economic Perspective”
- 2nd Place — Brian Wright “Modified Traffic Impact Study for the Proposed Why-Not Manufacturing Facility”
2011
- 1st Place — Jacob Cragin “Biological Soil Crust as an Inhibiting Factor to the Entry of Bromus tectorum into habitats in Southwest Idaho”
- 2nd Place — Heidi Ware “Predator Regulation of Bark Beetle Populations: Can Woodpeckers Effectively Control Beetle Outbreaks?”
Multilingual First-Year Writing
2017
- 1st Place — Eva Kanneberger “Motherhood”
- 2nd Place — Nitya Bhargavi Nukala “How Stereotypes Helped Me to Understand Myself”
2016
- 1st Place — Yewen Wu “As the Constellations”
- 2nd — Rabab Alahmed “Social Predicaments Caused by Stereotypes”
2015
- 1st Place — Oanh Tran “Selfplace”
- 2nd Place — Abdulatif Aldihani “The Fact of Belonging”
2014
- 1st Place — Keshia Mejorado-Mendez “Escribiendo Para Todos”
- 2nd Place — Anas Abdullah Alshaaer “Children’s Rights in Saudi Arabia”
2013
- 1st Place — Gilbert Mbonyintwari “My ‘Guilde’ to Learning Languages”
- 2nd Place — Ahmed Al Rashed “The World in One House”
2012
- 1st Place — Farzan Faramarzi “My Farwell Moments”
- 2nd Place — Xiaohai Wang “Happy English”
2011
- 1st Place — Oanh Tran “Selfplace”
- 2nd Place — Abdulatif Aldihani “The Fact of Belonging”