
Recognitions
So many CUNY faculty members, students, and alumni have received special recognition for their writing. We’re working to archive these accomplishments here. Please see what we’ve recorded so far!
Hunter College Distinguished Lecturer Colum McCann Wins National Book Award for Fiction
"In accepting the award, the Irish-born Mr. McCann, now a teacher of creative writing at Hunter College, said, "As fiction writers and people who believe in the word, we have to enter the anonymous corners of human experience to make that little corner right." » Emily Raboteau, Associate Professor of English at City College, Wins 2009 Bechtel Prize"Teachers & Writers Collaborative has awarded the 2009 Bechtel Prize to Emily Raboteau for 'Jazz Poetry,' her essay about using the poetry of jazz music as an entry point and inspiration for her college students' reading and writing of poetry." » Brooklyn College's Helen Phillips Wins $25,000 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award"Helen Phillips received her B.A. from Yale University in 2004 and her M.F.A. from Brooklyn College...where she is an adjunct lecturer and administrator in the creative writing program." » Hunter Professor Michael Thomas Wins $140,000 Literary Prize"Hunter English Professor and novelist Michael Thomas has been awarded the Dublin Literary Award for his debut novel, Man Gone Down. The prize is among the literary world's most lucrative, with a cash award of $140,000. Thomas, who is also a Hunter alumnus, beat out a pool of finalists that included Junot Diaz' Pulitzer Prize-winning The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." » Translator Esther Allen Wins Cullman Center Fellowship"Esther Allen, an assistant professor in the Department of Modern Languages & Comparative Literature at Baruch College, has been awarded a 2009-2010 Fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library (NYPL)." » Amy Hempel Wins 2008 Rea Award for the Short Story"Noted author Amy Hempel, a recipient of the Hobson Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship who replaced Michael Cunningham as coordinator of the M.F.A. Program in Fiction at Brooklyn College this fall, has been awarded yet another literary honor." » Hasanthika Sirisena Wins Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award"Ms. Sirisena lives in Jackson Heights, New York, and is an adjunct lecturer at City College of New York, where she received her M.F.A. in 2006....She intends to use her Writer's Award to live in Sri Lanka for a year to conduct essential research and finish both her novel and short story collection. » Kimiko Hahn Wins Pen/Voelcker Award for Poetry
From the judges' citation: “With wild courage Kimiko Hahn’s poems voyage fearlessly into explorations of love, sexuality, motherhood, violence, and grief and the way gender inscribes us.” » Hunter MFA Professor Meena Alexander Wins Guggenheim Fellowship
Tom Sleigh Wins $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Award"Claremont Graduate University administers two major prizes for poetry each year, The Kingsley Tufts Award ($100,000) and The Kate Tufts Discovery Award ($10,000.) CGU’s Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award is one of the largest monetary prizes in the nation for a single work of a mid-career poet…" » Roger Sedarat Wins Ohio University Press' Hollis Summers Open Book Competition"In his provocative, brave, and sometimes brutal first book of poems (Dear Regime: Letters to the Islamic Republic), Roger Sedarat directly addresses the possibility of political change in a nation that some in America consider part of “the axis of evil.…" » Gregory Pardlo Wins 2007 American Poetry Review/Honickman PrizeBridgett M. Davis honored by the New York Association of Black Journalists |
Distinguished ProfessorsCUNY recognizes a select group among its talented faculty for especially outstanding scholarly and creative accomplishments as "Distinguished Professors." Currently, CUNY's Distinguished Professors include the following faculty writers: |












Distinguished Professor of English Meena Alexander, an award-winning poet and novelist who teaches in the MFA program at Hunter, has been named a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow.



