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BARNARD
COLLEGE HONORS NEW YORK CITY HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS FOR COMPELLING
ESSAYS ABOUT "A WOMAN I ADMIRE"
New York,
NY, March 20, 2003—Thirty teenage girls—all students
in New York City public high schools—were named winners
of the 2003 Barnard College/CBS Essay Contest for tributes
to mothers and grandmothers and their struggles through wartime,
poverty, disability, and other difficulties. Students from
Midwood High School in Brooklyn won two of the top four prizes.
Now in its twelfth year, the highly competitive and popular
contest drew 685 entries from 79 high schools throughout the
five boroughs.
Selected
by a panel of professional writers, the students will be honored,
along with their teachers, at a special ceremony at the College
on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26th, starting at 6:15 p.m.
Aminata
Cisse, a junior at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, was the
$1,000 top-prize winner with an eloquent tribute to her Senegalese
grandmother. Cisse writes that despite being "born in
a place and time where women are relegated to a lower status,"
her grandmother "has disavowed the passivity fated for
women of her culture and religion." Midwood High School's
English department will receive $500 in Ms. Cisse's honor.
Click here
to read the winning essay.
The top
three runners-up are:
- Ebony
Williams, of the High School of Fashion Industries, who
earned a second-place honor and a $500 prize with her gritty
recollection of her mother, who left an abusive relationship
and struggled with poverty and numerous moves with dignity
and courage. Over the course of her tumultuous childhood,
Williams learns that "home was not where, but who."
- Naida
Jakirlic, of Long Island City High School, won third place
and $300 with an affecting portrait of her mother, a wartime
survivor who she characterizes as "the powerful Atlas
who had carried the full weight of the fear and anxiety
that the war had brought with it."
- Laura
Lee, of Midwood High School, won fourth place and $200 with
an essay that movingly recounts how her perception of her
deaf mother has evolved over the years, concluding that
"you are no longer the infallible protector of my universe….You
are still the loud, deaf woman, and though your speech is
slurred, I can hear you clearly like a breeze blowing through
wind chimes."
This year,
the judges selected 26 Certificate of Merit winners representing
12 high schools. The Bronx H.S. of Science led the pack with
seven merit winners, with Townsend Harris H.S. in Queens following
closely behind with six merit winners. As in years past, the
majority of the entrants wrote about their mothers, grandmothers,
sisters and cousins—female relatives who have directly
impacted their lives.
The judges—all
Barnard English professors or alumnae-writers—for the
competition were: Cyndi Stivers, President and Editor-in-Chief
of TimeOut New York; Pola Rosen, Publisher and Editor
of Education Update, author Ayana Byrd, and Barnard
English professors Quandra Prettyman and Elizabeth Dalton.
Excerpts
from the top four winning essays are attached. Full texts
of all winning essays are available on request.
Your Press Coverage is Invited
What:
2003 Barnard College/CBS Essay Contest Reception
When:
Wednesday, March 26, 2003, 6:15 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Where:
Barnard College, 3009 Broadway at 117th Street, Lower Level
McIntosh Center
Contact:
Petra Tuomi, Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-7907, ptuomi@barnard.edu
or
Cyndie
Pogue, Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-2037, cpogue@barnard.edu
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