This History Department celebration is held on the last day of classes of the spring semester. It is our opportunity to celebrate the achievements of our undergraduate majors and graduate students. Students are nominated for prizes (which include scholarship monies) by the department's faculty. A committee of faculty deliberate the nominations and determine the prize recipients. Those students receiving prizes are notified in April.

The Excellence in Historical Writing is an undergraduate prize and the only one for which students may nominate themselves via a paper, submitted anonymously, at the start of the spring semester.