Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures announces prizes

The Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures has announced its 2005 – 06 award winners. Prizes to undergraduate and graduate students total more than $6,000.

The Bernhard Blume Award for the senior who wrote the best honors thesis and whose performance in courses offered toward concentration was of equal merit was awarded to Caitlin Zacharias ’06. The winner of the Elizabeth Wilder Award, given to the freshman on financial aid who has never studied German before and who scores the highest grade on the midyear German A exam, went to In-Kyung Chae ’09.

Peter Vale ’06, an A.B./A.M. candidate in Scandinavian Studies, won a book award funded by the Swedish Institute in recognition of his outstanding performance in the Swedish language program and his enthusiastic promotion of Swedish language and culture.

On the graduate student level, Thomas Herold was awarded the Bernhard Blume Prize for attaining the most outstanding record in course work during the first three terms of graduate study. David Kim won the prize for the most outstanding record in course work during the second three terms of graduate study.

Every year a departmental committee selects a teaching fellow “who conducts undergraduate sections with the highest measure of pedagogical skills, linguistic proficiency, enthusiasm, and commitment to students’ learning and welfare” to receive the Jack M. Stein Teaching Fellow Award. This year’s prize went to Silke Brodersen.

Thomas Herold was also awarded the Esther Sellholm Walz Award, given to the graduate student for the best paper or essay as determined by a committee of the members of the department, for his paper “Zeichen und Zeichendeutung in Goethes Roman Die Wahlverwandtschaften.”