Two Marilyn Sternglass Awards are offered annually on the basis of merit:
Marilyn Sternglass Writing Award
(for writing submitted in a L&L graduate course, $500)
Marilyn Sternglass Overall Merit Award
(for matriculated L&L graduate students, $500)
Memorial Tribute for Marilyn Sternglass: 1932-2004.
Marilyn Sternglass died of natural causes on January 6th, 2004.
Formerly on faculty at three well-known universities, Marilyn came to City College in 1985, where she remained until her retirement in 1996. During her years at CCNY, Marilyn reconceived and rebuilt the department’s MA in Pedagogy–renaming it “Master of Arts in Language and Literacy.” In part to support this program, she lobbied successfully for obtaining several additional faculty lines. She then participated in hiring and mentoring the new professors.
As a member of the English Department, Marilyn routinely taught introductory writing courses and participated in related workshops and committees. During the early 1990s, she produced a series of critical reading and writing textbooks that were published by Macmillan; during these same years, Marilyn pursued a six-year study of fifty-three college students and of the various influences on their academic lives. This groundbreaking research culminated in a highly acclaimed book entitled Time to Know Them, published by Laurence Erlbaum in 1997.
Time to Know Them demonstrates the value of longitudinal research for learning about public college commuter students and their evolution as writers. The key argument is that students entering college as remedial writers do acquire academic literacy as they proceed through several years of college–and that we need to look beyond the first-year writing course to understand undergraduate student writers. Having quickly earned national attention, Time to Know Them won two prestigious awards: the Mina Shaughnessy Award from the Modern Language Association and the CCCC Outstanding Book Award from the National Council of Teachers of English. As Marilyn saw it, Time to Know Them was a defense of open admissions policies and programs as well as a partial response to James Traub’s critique of CCNY.
After retiring from City College in 1996, Marilyn made fifteen conference presentations as an invited speaker, published six journal articles, and served as consultant for a FIPSE project –in addition to writing Time to Know Them. During these years, she generously continued to mentor many former students and younger colleagues–as she had been doing throughout her professional life.
A Language and Literacy MA Memorial Prize Fund was established by Marilyn Sternglass’s husband Ernest Sternglass and her adult children, Dan Sternglass and Susan Noble, in October 2004. These awards are the Marilyn Sternglass Overall Merit Award and the Marilyn Sternglass Writing Award.
Former Recipients:
AY 2020-2021
MS Overall Merit Award
Marcel Aguayo
Jorge I. Velez
MS Writing Award
Claire Balani
Valerie Smith
AY 2019-2020
MS Overall Merit Award
Brittany Zayas
MS Writing Award
Grace Kearney
Maria Qureshi
AY 2018-2019
MS Overall Merit Award
Sahib Kaur
MS Writing Award
Marina Palenyy
Honorable Mention
Allison Moorhead
Stephen Perry
AY 2017-2018
MS Overall Merit Award
Javid Buchman
MS Writing Award
Michael Rymer
AY 2016-2017
MS Overall Merit Award
Sokuntary Svay
MS Writing Award
Dominick Gregory
AY 2015-2016
MS Overall Merit Award
Maria Vint
MS Writing Award
Dominick Gregory
Sokuntary Svay
AY 2014-2015
MS Overall Merit Award
Sofia Binioris
Stephanie Jean
MS Writing Award
Sokunthary Svay
Maria Vint
AY 2013-2014
MS Overall Merit Award
Jennifer Buno
MS Writing Award
Sofia Binioris
Karen Mooney
AY 2012-2013
MS Overall Merit Award
Nargiza Matyakubova
Robert Ramos
MS Writing Award
Jessica Newman
AY 2010-2011
MS Overall Merit Award
Viktoriia Dudar
MS Writing Award
Viktoriia Dudar
AY 2009-2010
MS Overall Merit Award
Wynne Ferdinand
MS Writing Award
Alexandra Reihing
AY 2008-2009
MS Overall Merit Award
MS Writing Award
AY 2007-2008
MS Overall Merit Award
Philip Fisher
MS Writing Award
Lauren Ball
AY 2006-2007
MS Overall Merit Award
Toni L. D’Onofrio
John Lyons
MS Writing Award
Michael Burns