Alumni and Giving

Each fall and spring semester at Colorado State University, the Department of English welcomes distinguished literary voices to share their work and to engage with the local community through the Creative Writing Reading Series.

The series features Pulitzer Prize winners, U.S. poets laureate, National Book Critics Circle Award winners, Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award winners, NAACP Image Award nominees, Oprah’s Book Club selections, National Book Award finalists and recognized voices in young adult literature.

Launched in 1956 (with the first issue featuring work by Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings, Henry Miller, Bertolt Brecht, and Mark van Doren), Colorado Review is a national literary journal featuring contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and book reviews. Published three times a year, CR has a circulation of approximately 1,100, is carried by university and public libraries across the country, and is also available via Project MUSE.

Contributions to Colorado Review helps us to continue publishing fresh and innovative work by writers at all stages of their careers as well as provide professional internship opportunities to graduate students.

The Community Literacy Center creates alternative literacy opportunities in order to educate and empower underserved populations, including incarcerated juveniles and adults, adult learners, women, at-risk youth, and English language learners. The CLC also supports University-community literacy outreach programs and advocates for increased public awareness about the needs and contributions of our diverse community.

This award provides faculty and staff the opportunity to bring to fruition ambitiously creative ideas that can too easily get lost in the demands of the academic year and to provide initial support for those inspired inklings of possibility that might unfold into major projects.

The purpose of this award is to support efforts by faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and staff whose work addresses the pressing need to illuminate issues concerning the protection and restoration of the natural world. Ideally, this work will engage with a broad public audience by employing the skills and insights of literature and expression characteristic of the English Department within the College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University.

Established in 1991, this scholarship honors the memory of Donna Weyrick, a 1962 alumna in the Department of English. This endowed scholarship is made possible by contributions from the Weyrick family and friends.

This scholarship was created in memory of Judith A. Dean, a graduate in the master’s program in the Department of English, and prominent professional in the English teaching field and the organizations that support it. Judith Dean earned an MAT at Colorado State in 1978 and taught at high schools in Colorado, Idaho, and New Mexico. She served two terms as President of the Colorado Language Arts Society, and several years on the Society’s executive committee—strong measures of her prominence in public education in Colorado.

This scholarship is awarded to an undergraduate English major.

This annual scholarship is given by an alumna of the English department and parent of a former CSU student who studied electrical engineering, computer science, and string bass performance. The recipient of this award is a full-time graduate or undergraduate student, or a part-time graduate or undergraduate enrolled in the College of Liberal Arts in the Department of English.

This scholarship is awarded to undergraduate students in memory of Karyn L. Evans, an alumna of the English department, and is created through a gift from her estate.

This scholarship is awarded in memory of Ann Osborn Zimdahl, a 1981 graduate of the CSU MA TEFL/TESL program. Ann taught in the Intensive English Program and contributed to the international community of the university and Fort Collins. Her career also extended overseas where she held several different teaching appointments. Ann was strongly committed to cross-cultural understanding and enthusiastically shared her love of new cultures with her students both here and abroad.

The award recognizes the long-standing contributions and commitment to teaching of Dr. Stephen Reid, who taught in the Department of English from 1972-2014 and who is nationally known for his work in writing pedagogy. The selection committee chooses a prize winner and an honorable mention.

This award is given in memory of Professor James Garvey. It is presented annually to a graduate student in their second semester or beyond in the TEFL/TESL graduate program, or a student in the Rhetoric and Composition or English Education graduate programs. The recipient will show a strong interest in advanced language study.

This fellowship is awarded to a full-time graduate student admitted or enrolled in the Creative Writing MFA program (Poetry, Fiction and Creative Nonfiction), who does not have a graduate teaching assistantship.