New student awards honor medieval studies faculty

The Medieval Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences has created two new student awards that honor the legacies of distinguished faculty members: the Carol Kaske Prize and the Tom Hill Graduate Essay Award. 

The prizes will recognize outstanding undergraduate and graduate student research in medieval and Renaissance studies, ensuring that the high standards of scholarship and mentorship that both professors exemplified will continue to inspire future generations of students, faculty said.

“Tom and Carol were not only extraordinary scholars; they were phenomenal mentors who cared deeply about their students' intellectual and personal growth,” said Andrew Galloway, the James John Professor of Medieval Studies (A&S) and long-time colleague of both professors. “Their weekly luncheons with faculty were vibrant discussions that spanned topics from archaeology to Romance linguistics, from legal history to Old English and Old Norse.”

Kaske, who died in 2016, was a late medieval and Renaissance English literature scholar. She taught at Cornell from 1963 to 2003, where she was widely respected for her groundbreaking work on figures such as Edmund Spenser and Sir Thomas Malory. 

The Carol Kaske Prize will be awarded to an undergraduate student at Cornell who has written the best essay on a medieval or Renaissance topic. 

Hill, who taught at Cornell from 1967 until his retirement in 2022, was a scholar of Old English, Icelandic sagas and medieval literature. Hill was instrumental in shaping the Medieval Studies Program at Cornell, fostering the intellectual community that draws students and faculty into deep and interdisciplinary discussions of medieval texts. Hill’s scholarly contributions spanned a wide range of topics, from “Beowulf” to Old Norse literature.

The Tom Hill Graduate Essay Award will be presented to a graduate student who has written the best essay on any topic within the field of medieval studies. The award is open to graduate students across all departments and disciplines. The prize is intended to support graduate students in their pursuit of innovative and interdisciplinary scholarship in medieval studies.

Submissions for both prizes are due Jan. 31 and will be judged by a faculty panel in the Medieval Studies Program. The winners will be recognized at the spring Quodlibet Lecture and the Medieval Studies Commencement ceremony. More information on how to enter your submission can be found here.

Andrew Hicks, the current director of the Medieval Studies Program and associate professor of music, said these new prizes are a fitting tribute to Kaske's and Hill’s passion for their fields of study. “It’s particularly satisfying to one who knows their lifelong commitments to the field that these prizes can support the love of these fields and of current and future generations of students,” he said.

These new awards also reflect the interdisciplinary spirit that both professors nurtured throughout their careers, Hicks said. Kaske’s work bridged the medieval and Renaissance periods, while Hill’s scholarship spanned a wide range of medieval traditions, demonstrating the power of cross-temporal and cross-cultural studies. 

For more information on the awards and the submission process, visit this website: https://medievalstudies.cornell.edu/student-prize-submission-form

Elizabeth Lara-Rivera '26 is a communications assistant for the College of Arts and Sciences.