Terry Kershaw Student Essay Contest – National Council for Black Studies

The Terry Kershaw Student Essay Contest is named in the honor of the late Dr. Terry Kershaw.
Terry Kershaw, the former Head of the Department of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati, was a NCBS Board Member (2001-2015), Vice President of NCBS (2010-2012) and editor of NCBS’ International Journal of Africana Studies (2002-2011).

ESSAY GUIDELINES:

Essays should focus on ANY aspects of the Africana experience, i.e. art, education, history, literature, politics, psychology, social issues, and policy issues.
The essay must:

Be typed and submitted in Microsoft Word (do not convert your document to a PDF)
Not extend more than twenty-five (25) pages in length, inclusive of reference and bibliography pages.
Be double-spaced with one inch page margins utilizing Calibri font, 12pt
Contain page header to include the title of essay, centered, and a bold capital G or U (representing Graduate or Undergraduate) left justified
Contain page footer with page number 1 of XX
Utilize document sources with either MLA or the APA style guide.

Include a separate cover sheet is a must. Cover sheet should be a separate Word file and must include: your name, essay title, mailing address, email address, telephone number, name of the college you attend, your class status (i.e., freshman, sophomore, junior, senior or graduate student) and name of faculty advisor. Submissions that fail to send the cover sheet as a separate document will be declined without the ability to resubmit.
DO NOT type your name on ANY of the pages. Reviewers must NOT have any identifying clues from your paper.
DO NOT reveal your college/university affiliation anywhere in the document
Submit your essay electronically to: studentessay@ncbsonline.org

Submission deadline: Monday, December 22, 2025 EST

A note to our student submitters:

Thank you for submitting your essay for consideration.

We deeply appreciate the time and effort in preparing the essay. All essays are considered through a blind process. If your essay is not selected as a winner, please do not be discouraged, you can submit again the following the year. Essays that do not win are not an indication of poor quality as we receive stellar essays, but just a reflection of the competitive nature of the program. We would like to provide feedback to all submitted essays, but due to the sheer volume of essays received, this is not possible.

Winners of the competition will recognized and awarded during this 48th Annual NCBS Conference on Friday, March 13, 2026 during the Terry Kershaw Student Luncheon

NCBS Student Essay Committee
Dr. Sarita Davis, Chair, Georgia State University
Dr. T. Ajewole Duckett, Northern Illinois University
Dr. Alicia Fontnette, University of Delaware
Dr. Grace Gipson, Virginia Commonwealth University
Aliza Leslie, Georgia State University
Dr. Denae Muhammad Powell, University of Houston
Zana Sanders, University of California, Berkeley
Marcus Smith, University of Massachusetts, Amherst