This fund is intended to support the establishment of a memorial writing prize at the University of Kansas, to honor long-time faculty member Byron Santangelo who passed away in March, 2024. We hope to raise enough to fund a prize that can be given annually in perpetuity. If we can get to $5,000, for example, that would provide $250 per year in interest (at 5%); enough for two modest prizes of $125 each. More, of course, would allow for more generous prizes and greater longevity for the fund. If we raise less than $5,000, we will probably have to turn the competition into a shorter-term prize that runs until the funds are exhausted.

While the prize will be adminstered through the English Department at KU, the prize will be open to all students at the University, reflecting Byron's faculty appointments in both English and Environmental Studies. Here's the proposed description for the prize:

Byron Santangelo Memorial Writing Prize in Environmental Humanities.

This prize celebrates the life and scholarship of Byron Santangelo, Professor of English and Environmental Studies at KU from 1997-2021, and renowned interdisciplinary scholar whose work brought together postcolonial and ecocritical scholarship in ways that profoundly influenced the study and teaching of the environmental humanities. One graduate and one undergraduate prize for scholarly essays concerned with topics in ecocriticism, humanities-based environmental studies, climate change, and/or environmental justice. Submit a writing sample of between 5-25 pages; open to all students at KU.