Syracuse University doctoral student wins Mary Hatch Marshall Essay Award

Syracuse University doctoral student wins Mary Hatch Marshall Essay Award April 24, 2008Pamela McLaughlinpwmclaug@syr.edu

Jessica Kuskey, a doctoral student in the English department in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, will receive the Mary Hatch Marshall Essay Award at the Syracuse University Library Associates annual Spring Luncheon on Friday, May 2. Her essay, “Thomas Carlyle’s `Pig Philosophy’ and Charles Dickens’s `Pip-Squeaker’: The Image of the Pig in Victorian Economics,” was selected from among eight entries.

To honor and help perpetuate Mary Hatch Marshall’s scholarly standards and generous spirit, Library Associates established this annual award in 2004 for the best essay written by a graduate student in the humanities at the University. Members of Library Associates, Marshall’s friends and family, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Central New York Community Foundation all contributed to the endowment that funds this annual award.

Born in 1903, Marshall graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College, received a Ph.D. from Yale University, and was later named a Guggenheim Fellow. Joining the SU faculty in 1948, Marshall became the first woman at the University to achieve the rank of full professor in The College of Liberal Arts. During her tenure, she held the Jesse Truesdell Peck Chair in English Literature; helped to establish the Honors Program, serving as its first director; and was among the founding members of Library Associates.

After retiring from full-time teaching, with emerita status, Marshall began a second career in adult education, offering courses through the Humanistic Studies Center at University College until 1993. Among the awards and honors she received for her service to the University and community are The Post-Standard Award for Distinguished Service to the Syracuse University Library, a Chancellor’s Citation and an Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award.

Full- and part-time students from African American Studies; English; Fine Arts; Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics; Latino-Latin American Studies; Religion; Philosophy; the Writing Program; and the Women’s Studies Program are eligible for the $500 award. Nominations are coordinated by the respective department and program chairs. Committee members who reviewed essays submitted for this year’s awards were Mark Brown (chair), Martha Gail Hamner, Vincent Stephens and Sean M. Quimby.