Scholarships & Awards

See Also: Scholarship Application

Undergraduate scholarships and awards are handed out every April at the Department of History Honors Banquet. Applications for awards are due in March. All complete applications will be reviewed by the Undergraduate Scholarships Committee and the committee’s decisions will be sent to applicants by mid April. If you have any questions regarding the application process for undergraduate scholarships please contact Mary Copeland at mcopela8@utk.edu.

Undergraduate Awards 

Bruce Wheeler Award                     
This award is named in honor of a recently retired colleague, Bruce Wheeler. Dr. Wheeler is an American historian, and a legend as an undergraduate teacher. The award named in his honor recognizes academic excellence in a junior who is participating in the department’s honors program.

Leroy Graf Scholarship                   
This award honor Dr. Leroy Graf, a former UT history professor who died in 1993. Dr. Graf served for many years as department chair, and helped to bring the Andrew Johnson Papers project to UT. In 1973 the university honored him as a Distinguished Service Professor.

Paul Pinckney Endowment                                     
The Paul J. Pinckney Scholarship honors Professor Pinckney, a member of the department for more than 30 years and an historian of Tudor-Stuart Britain, specializing in the politics of the English Civil War.  He won many teaching awards, including the Hesler Award for teaching and service to the University and its students.  The Pinckney Scholarship fund was created in his honor by Dr. Pinckney’s former students, who remember him as a “devoted teacher and friend,” who was “challenging, enlightening and inspiring.” 

Maud Calloway Hayes Award                    
This award honors a junior or senior in our department for academic excellence in the field of American history. 

Stephens and Hoffman Award

The Stephens and Hoffman award goes to a history major at any stage of study who has demonstrated academic excellence.  The award is named in honor of J. Wesley Hoffman, who taught at the University of Tennessee from 1937 until his retirement in 1965, and Ruth Stephens, a professor of history and political science who retired in 1960, and enjoyed a second career as host of a television program called “History Behind the News.”

Norman Stanley Smith Award                   
The Norman Stanley Smith Award recognizes an excellent student who is working in any field of history.

J.P. and Gladys Maples Award
The J.P. and Gladys Maples Scholarship recognizes a worthy history major working in any field.

J. Harvey Mathes Award
The J. Harvey Mathes award recognizes strong academic work by a history major at any level.  (Not given in 2008)

Outstanding Graduating Senior
This student is chosen by the Department as the year’s top history student.  Nominations are solicited from among the faculty, and the Undergraduate committee makes the final selection.

Contact Information

Department of History
915 Volunteer Blvd.
6th Floor Dunford Hall
Knoxville, TN 37996-4065

Phone: (865) 974-5421
Fax: (865) 974-3915
Email: kharriso@utk.edu