The Thomas prize is awarded annually for best undergraduate student paper in art history. The award is named for Professor Sidney Thomas (1915-2009), a member of the department from 1961-1985. Initially trained in literary studies, Thomas began his academic career as a Shakespeare scholar before moving into art history upon his arrival at Syracuse University. Deeply devoted to humanistic scholarship, Thomas edited two benchmark publications in this area: The Nature of Art (with John Gassner, 1964) and Images of Man: Selected Readings in Arts and Ideas in Western Civilization (1972). 

Recipients

2025-26 - Caroline Mary O'Rourke: A Mastery of Flesh
2024-25 - Andrea Turnbull: The Stick Style: A Distinctively American Domestic Architectural Movement
2023-24 – no award given
2022-23 - Avery Colligan-Wild: Tracing the Metaphysical Journey of Vrubel's Demon
2021-22 - Grace McCormick: You Will Hear Me: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Monument Projections as Critical History
2020-21 - Zora Ezawa: AN ADOLESCENT PARIS: The Role of Childhood in Luxemberg Gardens
2019-20 - Sophia Jactel: Domesticity and Diversions: Josef Israëls’ The Smoker as a Symbol of Peasant Culture and the Role of the Home in Nineteenth-Century Holland
2018-19 - Danielle Christine Edwards: Into the Liminal Space of the Quattrocento: Carlo Crivelli and His Lamentation over the Dead Christ
2018-19 - Zora T. Ezawa: The Role of Art and Activism in the Solitary Confinement Reform
2017-18 - Benjamin Farr: Whistler's Thames Police: A Visual Alleviant for Machine Age Anxieties
2016-17 - Sarah Poisner: Diana and Her Nymphs: The Mystery of Vermeer's Early Career
2015-16 - Alice Blank: Furnishing Helena's Conformist Hell: An Analysis of Gothic Tropes and the Captive Maiden Archetype in Mirrormask
2009-10 - Sarah Capper: Drawing through a Sculptor's Eyes: An Analysis of Half Figureby Henry Moore
2007-08 - Meghan Maher: Enamel Reliquaries: Chasse with Crucifixion and Christ in Majesty
2006-07 - Sarah Parker: Where the Rainbow Really Ends: An essay on Patrick Hughes' Painting The End of the Rainbows
2004-05 - Brendon Kean: The Transept of Notre-Dame
2003-04 - Jon Chonko: Boyd and Evans 22b Balcombe Street
2002-03 - Cara Coughlin: The Urban Worker: A Modern Interpretation of a Modern Theme
2000-01 - Jason Lamphier: Blessed or Oppressed?: A Look at Nelson's Junk Aesthetic
1998-99 - Elizabeth Manton: Patronage and Collectors of Bosch
1997-98 - Elizabeth Manton: The Iconographic Traditions of the Garden of Love and their Influence on 17th Century Dutch Garden Imagery
1996-97 - Sarah Murphy: Howard Hodgkin, Representationally Abstract
1995-96 - Robyn Fleming: The 'Noble Art of Painting: A Study of Self-Identity in the Works of Two Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painters
1994-95 - Stacy Gerber: Arthur B. Carles and Jonas Lie: A Comparison of Two Twentieth-Century American Painters
1992-93 - Jennifer Duehn: Frogs, Toads, and Bosch: an Examination of Selected Works
1990-91 - Michelle Langin: The Choir Screen of the Cathedral of Strasbourg
1989-90 - Melissa Joulwan: Capturing the Donna Mobile
1988-89 - Juanita Grupe: Bruegel's Enigmatic Dulle Griet
1987-88 - Gary Jones: The German Meistersinger Tradition and its Impact on the (Early 16th Century Protestant Reformation Borrowing, vis., Martin Luther and the Emerging) Lutheran Hymn Tradition
1985-86 - Stephen Bluto (co-winner): The Design Elements of the Cosmatesque Pavement
1985-86 - Julie Moffat (co-winner): Selected Iconographical Interpretations of the Van der Paele Madonna
1984-85 - Janet Kraus: Hector Berlioz's Personality and its Influence on his Musical Career

n.b. – prior to 2007, the Thomas Award was presented to both art history and music history papers

The Veinus prize is awarded annually to the best undergraduate student paper in music history & cultures. The award is named for Professor Abraham Veinus (1916-2002), who was one of the first faculty to join the Department of Art and Music Histories (at the time, Department of Fine Arts) in 1948, shortly after its founding. A musicologist by training, Veinus wrote an important monograph, The Concerto (1944), and collaborated closely with his colleague William Fleming on the landmark textbook Understanding Music (1958). Embracing the department’s interdisciplinary breadth, later in life Veinus also became an accomplished painter, with his works receiving an exhibition at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival in 1973.

Recipients

2025-26 - Anna Elizabeth Meehan: "The Panduri as a Participatory Constructive Actor in Contemporary Formations of Georgian National and Cultural Identity."
2024-25 - Yifan Ivan Shen: “When Entertainment and Violence Collide: Struggle Sessions and Model Operas in China’s Cultural Revolution”
2023-24 – Kaycie Romano: Music for Resistance: Using African American Protest Music as a Tool to Teach Music and Civic Skills in the High School Choir Classroom
2022-23 - Tara Sandlin: Visions of Jeanne d'Arc: Mythologizing and Materializing a Queer Messianic Madonna in Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco
2020-21 - Samantha Ohlin: Storytelling with No Words
2019-20 - Hanna Dunakin: David Bowie Crossword
2018-19 - Gabrielle Sanft: Music by Design in Twelfth Night
2017-18 - Jacob Michael O'Shea: The Identities of Otello: Staging Practices in a Post-Blackface World
2016-17 - Sam Doucas: 'A New Face Hell': Pavement, The Fall, and the Nadir of Indie Rock
2015-16 - Samantha Skaller: Aristocratic abuse in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni
2014-15 - Carolyn Goldstein: Performance: The Fire that Ignited the Development of the Late Baroque Violin
2013-14 - Breanna Caires: The Raunchy Music of Cowboys: Exploring Sex's Role in a "Wholesome" Genre
2012-13 - Alex Lamport: Rap and Rave: The Collision of Hip-Hop and House Music
2011-12 - Anthony Beattie (co-winner): Discerning Landscape and Soundscape in Charles Ives' Orchestral Music: A Look at the Dichotomies Created by his Compositional Style
2011-12 - Aaron Pelc (co-winner): The Ainu of Japan: Ethnic Tourism, Music, and Negotiating Identities
2010-11 - Evan Wichman: Project-Based Learning in the Music History Classroom
2009-10 - Samantha Madonna: The Violin as a Symbol of Death in Mahler's Symphonies
2008-09 - Alec Sim: Lace to the Top: The Role of Corsets in Music Videos
2007-08 - Tiffany Newhill-Leahy: Composition and Copyright: Girl Talk's Feed the Animals and the History of the Mashup
2006-07 - Steven Kendrat: Lament Tradition and Conventions in Orontea