A $1,500 award is up for grabs in a new essay competition.
The John Marshall - Dan O'Hanlon Constitution Day Essay Competition was announced by the College of Liberal Arts in June, with $1,500 going to the winner and $750 going to the second-place essay.
O'Hanlon, a local circuit court judge and former chair of the MU Criminal Justice Department, announced the contest during a June 10 appearance on campus.
The contest will be part of this year's Constitution Week activities with the winners being announced on Constitution Day (Sept. 17).
"This is a real opportunity for students to show off their academic skills," said David Pittenger, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. "A lot of times, colleges and universities talk about athletic competition that is a small fragment of the university. This is the type of competition where everybody on campus is capable of competing and it rewards the thing that the university values most and that is good scholarship."
Pittenger, who has served as dean for one year, came up with the idea for this competition shortly after assuming his position on campus.
"Marshall University is, of course, named after (former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court) John Marshall," Pettiner said. "I thought it would be really appropriate to have a contest to get students to think more about the important components of the Constitution."
The essay topic deals with free speech and asks whether a university should be allowed to restrict what free speech is for its faculty members.
A six-person committee will review the essays and select a winner. Christopher Green, an associate professor of English, will be one of the members of the review committee and believes the Constitution is a great topic for discussion.
"One thing I will say about Constitution in America that may not be obvious to our students is that the Constitution is always changing," Green said. "It's stable, but always changing. It's a metamorphic property based on what and how people interpret it, who they're talking to and what they're talking about. It's the same words, but the meaning is always changing."
Through this competition, students will be able to interpret the Constitution in their own way and have their voice on the matter heard.
"The essay needs to address the primary questions; it needs to have done thoughtful research, it needs to have powerful expression and it needs to be original," Green said. "The goal in sharing that is to show that the door is open for people to become part of the conversation about the Constitution in American via this (competition)."
The works will be evaluated based on four criteria - scope of essay, completeness of research, clarity of expression and originality of thought. The committee, composed of faculty members with backgrounds in English, American History and Political Science, will be looking for a number of items in reviewing the student works.
"We'll be looking for the typical things you'd look for in an essay," Pittenger said. "Is it well-written? Can the person reading it follow the logic and the train of thought that the individual provides? Does it address the question? Does the person go beyond a surface analysis of the problem and really give some deep thought to the project? We're looking for all the (components) of good writing - brevity and clarity of expression, detailed thought, original research; and we're looking for some good ideas to be presented."
More specifically, the committee will be looking for a piece that really stands out.
"What do we want?" Green asked. "An essay that knocks you off your feet. An essay that should be published in the Harper's Magazine and (makes us ask) why isn't it there… The goal, though, is not to find a mediocre piece, the greatest common denominator, but to find a piece which somebody feels strongly about. Often times somebody else doesn't like it. But we'll look at them all, go on our own ways and read them, then reconvene and discuss which ones are making this happen."
Essays should be submitted to Pittinger at pittengerd@marshall.edu as Microsoft Word documents that are 10 pages in length, double-spaced with an "easy to read" 12-point font. The deadline for submissions is Aug. 24.
Chris Dunham can be reached at dunham13@marshall.edu
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