Liberal Education Initiative

The Currency of the Liberal Arts and Sciences: Rethinking Liberal Education in Wisconsin

Announcing the Third Annual
Liberal Arts Essay Scholarship Competition

Sponsored by the University of Wisconsin System
Advisory Group on the Liberal Arts (SAGLA)

UW System Deadline is February 29, 2008
Campus deadlines will be earlier!

Download these guidelines as a pdf file.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

This Year’s Topic:
Imagine yourself as a graduating senior with a younger sibling who will be starting college next year.  What advice would you offer to this brother or sister who is setting off on the path of a liberal education?  What experiences should your sibling anticipate—or seek out—that might afford a richer comprehension of liberal education's ideals?

Eligibility:
This competition is open to any UW System undergraduate student with a current GPA of at least 3.4 who is also either:
      A) currently enrolled in the UW Colleges and has completed a minimum of 30 credit hours by the end of the Fall Semester 2007, with at least one semester (Fall 2008) as a full-time student remaining; or
      B) currently enrolled in a UW System comprehensive or doctoral institution and has completed a minimum of 60 credit hours by the end of the Fall Semester 2007, with at least one semester (Fall 2008) as a full-time student remaining. 

Award:
Three scholarships for $2,000 each are available (one to a student from the UW Colleges and two to students from the UW comprehensive and doctoral institutions).

Submission:
All submissions are to be original essays, 1,000-1,250 words in length, double-spaced and type-written.  Each essay must include a title page with the following information:  title of essay, student’s name, major, institution, college and home address, e-mail address, telephone number, and the following statement: “I hereby affirm that this is my own work, an original essay, and agree that it will become the property of the UW System Board of Regents and that it can be reproduced in the public domain.”

Each UW institution will determine its own student essay submission and screening process, including the setting of institutional deadlines for essay submission to the Provost’s Office.
Students are advised to make certain of campus deadlines.

The deadline for submission of finalist essays from the institutions is February 29, 2008.  Each comprehensive and doctoral institution may submit no more than three (3) finalist essays, the UW Colleges may submit up to 13 essays (one per campus).  Please make institutional submissions electronically via e-mail, by the February 29, 2008 deadline, to opid@uwsa.edu

Final selection of winning essays will be determined by a group of judges from the UW System Advisory Group on the Liberal Arts (SAGLA).  Recipients will be notified in spring 2008.

As part of the UW System’s partnership with the Association of American Colleges & Universities in the LEAP Campaign (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) this undergraduate essay competition aims to promote understanding of the purpose and value of a liberal arts and science education.