The Redhouse Prize for Best Progress in Turkish was established by the Turkish Studies Association in 1991, and four such prizes continue to be available annually, two for each of two regions in North America, designated as East and West. Although the monetary value is not large ($100), outstanding students deserve the public recognition that being a winner brings.
Student Eligibility: Any student (graduate or undergraduate) who, in the designated academic year, completes a full-year course at any level in Modern Turkish or Ottoman at a university offering such courses in its regular program is eligible for nomination. However, student eligibility is limited to a "once-in-a-lifetime" award.
Eligible Institutions: Currently there are 22 eligible institutions, distributed, with some slight adjustment for balance, as follows:
EAST: Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Indiana, McGill, Michigan, NYU, Ohio State, Penn, Princeton, Toronto, Yale
WEST: Arizona , Berkeley, Cameron, Chicago, Portland State, Texas, Utah, UCLA, Washington, Wisconsin-Madison
Nomination Procedure: Each institution may select ONE nominee annually, judged at faculty discretion to be the student who made the most progress in Modern Turkish or Ottoman in the designated academic year. The nominee's name must be submitted, with supporting material no later than June 15 to the appropriate Area Coordinator who&emdash;with whatever consultation is necessary&emdash;will make the final choice of two recipients for the area. The Area Coordinators will inform the Language Awards Committee no later than September 15 of their choice, and the Committee will forward the information to the President of TSA.
- AATT will arrange for the recipients to be informed of their selection and to receive their prizes by mail or (preferably) at the TSA Annual Meeting.
- The President of TSA informs institutions of their students' awards.
The 2003-2004 Language Awards Committee consist of:
Selim Kuru (University of Washington) selims@u.washington.edu
Pelin Basci (Portland State University) bnpb@pdx.edu
The following AATT members serve as Area Coordinators who will receive the initial applications:
EAST: Güliz Kuruoglu (UCLA), 2692 Redlands, Costa Mesa, CA 92627
WEST: Sylvia Önder (Georgetown University), Eastern Mediterranean Languages, Georgetown University, Box 571041, Washington D.C. 20057-1041
Nomination Package: Although no official nomination form has been devised, the faculty nomination package must include the following:
* student's name, address, e-mail, and telephone number, cv (if available)
* letter of recommendation confirming academic status (graduate/undergraduate, degree candidacy, etc.) and standing in language class with an assessment of his/her natural aptitude versus effort in language learning, and&emdash;unless included in the cv&emdash;details of other previous exposure to Turkish
* name of course instructor(s) and department chair, student's academic dean
* description of course (with, for example, syllabus, details of texts used, etc.)
* samples of student's written work, hand-ins, and/or exam booklets as well as a recorded speech sample.