The Focused Inquiry Student Engagement Committee is delighted to present the first-, second-, and third-place winners of the 2019-2020 Student Contests. Congratulations to all of our contest winners!
In addition, we’d like to extend our sincere thanks to all of the participants in this year’s contests: your contributions helped to support and nurture our community of writers and composers within the Focused Inquiry Department.
The winning compositions have been published on the VCU Writes! website under the “Student Work” tab.
For more information about the FI Student Contests (and to make a submission for the 2020-2021 contests), please see our website.
FI Contest Winners (2019-2020 Contest)
Category 1: Narrative, Reflective, Expository, or Personal Writing (UNIV 111/112, usually unit 1)
| Student Name | Title | Instructor | |
| 1st Place | Felipe Joglar-Viera | “First Day” | Larry Williams |
| 2nd Place | Katie Thompson | “Disfellowshipped” | Troy Martin |
| 3rd Place | Zhila Pirnazar | “I ‘S’ound Different” | Lindsay Chudzik |
Category 2: Analysis, Synthesis, or Research Writing (UNIV 111/112, usually unit 2)
| Student Name | Title | Instructor | |
| 1st Place | Maya Charlton | “Opportunity Cost: The Challenges of Having a Working-Class Identity in Academia” | Kim Zicafoose |
| 2nd Place | Eliana Espel | “Dear Council” | Allison Tharp |
| 3rd Place | Mikaela Peters | “Self-Perception in an Oppressive Society” | Kim Zicafoose |
Category 3: Researched Argument (UNIV 111/112)
| Student Name | Title | Instructor | |
| 1st Place | Arden Gentry | “The Invisible Woman: Motherhood in America’s Prisons” | Michael McIntyre |
| 2nd Place | Maya Charlton | “Facebook and the Violation of Privacy Rights” | Kim Zicafoose |
| 3rd Place | Cabell Willoughby Jones | “We Need Our Space: The Ethics of Space Warfare” | Kim Zicafoose |
Category 4: Multimodal Project (UNIV 111/112)
| Student Name | Title | Instructor | |
| 1st Place | Moira Snyder | “Trust and Corruption” | Elizabeth Kreydatus |
| 2nd Place | Andrea Chavez | “Unseen” | Elizabeth Kreydatus |
| 3rd Place | Julie Lam | “My Grandparents” | James Fueglein |
Category 5: Researched Argument (UNIV 200)
| Student Name | Title | Instructor | |
| 1st Place | Chaewon Lee | “David and Goliath, Or Are They?: An Evaluation of Artist and Market Tendencies in 1960s America” | Christopher Jackson |
| 2nd Place | Madeleine Dugan | “A Cock in the System: How The Feminist Art Movement Revolutionized the Art World” | Jessica Gordon |
| 3rd Place | Melissa Hardwick | “Gender Inequality in a Single Bound: How Comic Books Shape Negative Male Perception of Women” | Vicki Pallo |
Category 6: Multimodal Project or Transmediation (UNIV 200)
| Student Name | Title | Instructor | |
| 1st Place | Gracie Tecala | “New Families Can Live Tiny” | Matthew Vechinski |
| 2nd Place | Haseb Alim | “Reading Matters” | Jennifer Selman Flanagan |
| 3rd Place | Leonie Brightly | “Healing Hospital Interiors” | Vicki Pallo |
Textbook Cover Art Contest:
| Name | Title | |
| 1st Place | Trey Shiflett | “Space and Place” |