Collegiate Times

Students and faculty presented the first annual Steger Awards last night by presenting awards and reading poetry from all winning submissions and faculty members themselves. The Steger Award was given to the poem that best represented a theme of the future. Over 300 students submitted their poetry. The Poems were judged by the Steger Committee and was open to all students at the university. Submissions were due by March 1.

The Steger Award was given to Anhvu Buchanan, senior psychology major, for his poem ?Mission Statement.? Jonathan Pillow, senior English and psychology, major received first runner up for his poem ?The Cornfield.? Cheyenne Romaine, freshman psychology major, received second runner up for her poem ?The Summer I Turn 79.? Nine honorable mentions were also awarded.

The ceremony opened with speeches from Nikki Giovanni, university distinguished professor, Lucinda Roy, alumni distinguished professor and Fred D'Aguair, co-director of creative writing,

The idea for the award came up while Giovanni and University President Charles Steger were having dinner. Steger gave $1000 to the award, which made it a major university undergraduate poetry contest, Giovanni said.

However, Giovanni wanted the award to be represented more than just cash.

?I wanted the winner to have something, because you spend the money, you spend the thousand dollars, and you don't remember,? she said. ?That's when I went to Jeweler (Faith Capone) and asked her to design something.?

Capone designed ?The Steger? statuette based on the concept of the award. The statuette has a large magnifying glass in silver sterling.

Steger chose to give his award to poetry because of his admiration for it. The theme of the future was also very fitting to Virginia Tech's new brand of ?inventing the future.?

?One of the things that I admire so much about poetry is its ability to capture substance and meaning in so few words,? he said.

Steger wants the award to be a representation of the universities arts and humanities program.

?I wanted it to symbolize the value that we place on arts and the humanities as part of the education and process and I think we accomplished that.?

Giovanni hopes to see more students enter the Steger in years to come.

?We would like to have the award get bigger, because we know that there are writers all over the campus,? said Giovanni. ?Many times people will think you have to be an English major, and of course that's not true. I know that we have a lot of good writers.?

Students are invited to enter next year's award contest starting August 2006. Submissions will be due by March 1, 2007.