Grants & Awards

A limited number of grants of up to $500 are available to Honors students each semester. Selection is based on academic merit, quality of supporting materials and financial need. Grant money is used to support the research efforts of students and can be used for expenses such as travel to conferences or equipment unique to the student’s project.

To qualify, students must be admitted to a college or departmental Honors program. They must be actively engaged in a research project that leads to an individual Honors thesis.

Students who are awarded the Honors research grant agree to submit a final copy of their thesis to the Honors College, and to have their name, thesis title and abstract posted on the Honors website. A student may receive the award once.

Application Deadlines:
October 1 (Fall)
February 26 (Spring)

Apply for an Honors research grant

The Gordon Prize is open to all students in good standing in the Honors College (LLPs and Departmental Honors). It is an endowed award established with the generous donation of Dr. Lawrence A. Gordon, a professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business. The award seeks creative and innovative essays or projects that may approach the topic of “Managing Cybersecurity Resources” from a variety of perspectives. The winning entry receives a total award of $1,000.00.

Applications for the 2025 cycle open on Monday, November 4, 2024, and are due on Friday, April 4, 2025.

Read about the 2024 recipient

The Portz Outstanding Honors Student award was established in 1978 in honor of the first director of the General Honors program, Professor John Portz. The award consists of a certificate and a prize of $150. It is awarded annually to students who combine exceptional academic achievement with outstanding service or accomplishments outside the classroom. The award is presented at the fall Honors College Citation Ceremony to one student in each of the Honors College living-learning programs.

Established by Roger (’76, ’79) and Karen Winston (’75), the annual Winston Honors Writing Awards recognize the best essays, research papers and theses written by honors students.

The Best Student Paper Awards were established in honor of Professor John Portz, the founding director of the General Honors program at UMD. In 2013, Roger, Karen and Emily Winston generously donated funds to support and expand the scope of this award for honors students. There are now three principal categories for these awards: (1) Best Short Essay, (2) Best Research Paper and (3) Best Departmental Honors Thesis. These prestigious awards are coordinated by the faculty and staff of the Honors College.

The annual Winston Family Honors Writing Awards were established to recognize the writing of Honors students and to acknowledge the central role that faculty members play in mentoring Honors College students. We are grateful to Roger Winston (’76), Karen Winston (’75) and their daughter Emily Winston (’06), whose generous gift provides these merit awards. We deeply appreciate the Winston family’s investment in academic excellence and their commitment to the Honors College and the University of Maryland.

Award Application

The student awards applications open on Monday, November 4, 2024. Submissions, including faculty statements, are due Friday, March 28, 2025 at 11:59 p.m.

Short Essay: Written for an Honors course (H-version, H-Option, or LLP-based course) 1,250 to 2,500 words

Research Paper: Written for an Honors course (H-version, H-Option, or LLP-based course) 2,500 to 7,500 words

Honors Thesis: Culminating research project undertaken in a departmental honors program

Links

• Student Application Form
• Faculty Mentor Form

Eligibility:

• Students must be in the Honors College or enrolled and progressing in a Departmental/College Honors program.
• Submissions for the Short Essay and Research Paper Awards must have been submitted for course credit during one of the following terms: Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, and Spring 2025. This category is for short literary composition papers on a particular theme or topic. This category is not for research papers.
• Eligibility for papers written in H-option courses requires successful completion of the course with Honors credit (papers in the current Spring 2025 semester are not eligible).
• Submissions for Thesis Awards must represent work from the culminating research requirement in the Departmental Honors program during Spring 2025.
• Students must be currently enrolled in an undergraduate program at the time of submission to be eligible for these awards.
• Students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher to be eligible for these awards.
• Submissions must be in an academic writing format.
• One submission per student.
• Single authorship papers.

Faculty Mentors

Faculty mentors are those persons who either taught the course for which a student’s essay or research paper was written (in the case of both the Short Essay and Research Paper Awards), or who are the thesis advisor for the student (in the case of the Honors Thesis Award).

Submissions

Submissions will be accepted through Friday, March 28, 2025 as follows:

• For all submissions: Students must contact their faculty mentors to request a statement of support. Faculty mentors must complete a Faculty Statement Form by Friday, March 28, 2025.
• Thesis Award submissions: Complete the Student Application Form and attach in one file a 1-2-page thesis abstract and your completed thesis (or as advanced a draft as you have) by Friday, March 28, 2025.
• All submissions should be revised, polished, and suitable for consideration by an awards committee comprised of readers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds.
• Co-authored and/or group papers are not accepted.

Awards Celebration

Winston Award awardees will receive a monetary prize and a certificate. Awardees and mentors will also be celebrated on the Honors College website and social media accounts.

Winston Family Honors Faculty Award

This award recognizes outstanding faculty advising, mentorship and supervision of University of Maryland Honors students. Nominees must be tenure-track or professional-track faculty members who serve, or have served as Departmental Honors directors and/or undergraduate thesis advisors. The recipient will receive a monetary award and a plaque. Department chairs or their designees should submit letters of nomination to WinstonAwards@umd.edu. The deadline is Monday, March 10, 2025. Questions? Please email Traci Dula at tdula@umd.edu.

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2024 Recipients

Short Essay

• Kathryn Grow, “Space Agriculture: Risks vs Rewards”

Research Paper

• Alexandra Kreis, “Ecological Imperialism: The Persistence of Environmental Injustice through African Neo-Colonialism”
• Lynne Regules, “Our Nation’s Most Sacred Shrine: The Function of Arlington National Cemetery in American Public Memory”
• Jacob Shields, “That Which is Most Perfect in All of Nature”: Tracing the Thomistic View of Human Dignity from Aristotle to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”

Thesis

• Emma Behrens, “They’ve Gone Completely Off the Deep End”: Narrativizing and Contextualizing Alt-Right Discourse about Transgender Americans”
• Dalia Chen, “The Effect of Increasing Temperatures on the Survival and Transmission of a Naturally Occurring Plant Pathogen”
• Micah Ferguson, “LGBTQ+ Perceptions of Campus Climate”
• Daniel Klimes, “Novel Computational Methods for the Comparison of Leishmania Genomes and Transcriptomes”
• Jordan Kreh, “Hitting a Moving Target: Autonomous Path Planning Methods For an Evolving Environment”
• Rhiannon Little, “Changing the Conversation: The Use of Person-First Language in Criminal Labels”
• Jestina Ricci, “Forever and Indefinitely My Baby: #MedicalMoms, Social Media Influencing, and the Denial of Disability Identity Formation”
• Thomas Wolfson, “The Journey to Ratification: Maryland and the Fifteenth Amendment”

Faculty Awards

• Alexandra Bely, Department of Biology

• Michael Brown, Department of Geology

See the full Winston Awards history

The David Goff Scholarship is awarded to an Honors College student participating in the Integrated Life Sciences (ILS) program who has demonstrated a commitment to pursuing a career in medicine. This scholarship is made possible by the generous donation of Michael and Ellen Glazer in the memory of their dear friend, Dr. David Goff. This scholarship for $1,000 is non-renewable.

The 2024-25 application is available here and is due December 2, 2024. The recommendation form can be found here.

Eligibility:

Applicants must:

• Be making good progress toward completing the ILS citation
• Have completed a minimum of 30, but no more than 60, UMD credits, excluding AP/IB credits
• Have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.75
• Be strongly committed to pursuing a career in medicine
  (e.g., clinical medicine, medical research, public health or another allied health field)

Application:

Applicants must submit:

• A curriculum vitae/resume
• A reflective essay (300-500 words) describing your motivations, current experiences and future plans for pursuing a career in medicine
• A letter of recommendation from a UMD faculty member or other mentor who is not officially associated with the ILS program or the Honors College. Recommendations should address applicant’s academic accomplishments and co-curricular experiences, with special attention paid to those activities that are preparing the applicant for a medical career. Recommendations are due by Monday, December 2, 2024 and can be submitted by filling out this form.

For any questions, please contact Dr. Najib El-Sayed, director of the ILS Program in the Honors College.