Student Writers

The Writing Program continually fosters students to be active, public writing practitioners, and we celebrate, feature and publish student work in many forums. Writer Spotlights, DU Multimodal Archive, and WRIT Large represent a fraction of the talents of our writers at DU.

Routinely, the Writing Program hosts Showcase events to celebrate our student writers, including the following:

Writing Excellence Awards

All Writing Program Faculty are given the opportunity to name one exceptional student from the previous winter or fall terms to receive the Writing Excellence Award.

Director's Awards 

Every student who received an Excellence Award (and a few others named by faculty) are invited to apply for a Director's Award. Students must submit a portfolio of their best writing, usually the portfolio they submitted from their nominating professor’s course. These portfolios are reviewed by a faculty-led committee.

Kornfeld Scholarship 

The Kornfeld Scholarship is an endowed award to a single outstanding first-year writer each year.  The award is typically selected by the Executive Director from the pool of finalists who received Director Awards.  

Exemplar Awards 

A faculty-led process assesses singular pieces of writing in specific genres/categories, including awards for students in our Minor in Writing Practices.