Awards
Nominations for 2026 awards are now open! Please check out the award descriptions below and send your nominations no later than March 2, 2026. The Executive Committee is currently making plans for an awards event to be held in late spring.
The Stuart A. Rice Merit Award for Career Achievement
The Stuart A. Rice Merit Award is presented to a distinguished senior member of the Society who has made a significant contribution to the discipline. Nominees will be judged on their collective accomplishments over a professional career of at least 25 years.
Nominations are encouraged for individuals from any career setting, including but not limited to: academics, government service, private research, consulting, retirement and/or independent scholarship. Achievements may include scholarship, teaching and mentoring, use of sociology in public policy analysis, contributions to professional organizations, advancement of public awareness of sociological practice, leadership in the use of sociological knowledge in non-traditional settings, and related criteria.
Organization or academic titles (such as department chair, bureau chief, professor, etc.) are not, in the absence of other accomplishments, viewed as criteria of outstanding career achievement. Nominees must be current members of DCSS. Nominations remain active for three years.
To submit a nomination (which can include nominating yourself), please send a letter of nomination, the nominee’s resume or vita, and related supporting materials to dcsociologicalsociety@gmail.com.
The Irene B. Taeuber Graduate Student Paper Awards
Graduate students in the Washington, DC metro area are invited to submit papers for consideration for this award. Both M.A. and Ph.D. students enrolled in colleges and universities in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia are encouraged to submit. Each paper must present a clear research question and address a problem situated within a sociological framework. Submissions should include a description of the methodological approach, along with analysis and discussion that engage in sociological theory and relevant literature. A complete reference page is required. The recommended length is approximately 3,000 words, with a maximum of 8,000 words. Papers should be formatted in 12-point Times New Roman, with one-inch margins, and follow the ASA citation style.
Eligible submissions may include course papers or papers prepared for conference presentation or publication; however, previously published papers (or those accepted for publication) are not eligible for consideration, nor are full theses or dissertations (or proposals). All papers must be solely authored and the individual work of the author.
Separate awards are made for one M.A. student paper and one Ph.D. student paper; note the degree program with the submission. Students will be notified of the results at least two weeks before the ceremony, typically during the first week of April. Each winning author will receive a $200 cash award and will be recognized at the annual DCSS awards event.
This year’s submissions are due Monday, March 2, 2026 and should be sent to dcsociologicalsociety@gmail.com with “Student Paper Award” in the subject line.
The Morris Rosenberg Award for Outstanding Sociological Achievement
The Morris Rosenberg Award is presented for outstanding sociological achievement during the past three years by any member of DCSS.
Nominations are encouraged for individuals from any career setting, including but not limited to: academics, government service, private research, consulting, retirement and/or independent scholarship. Achievements may include—but are not limited to—scholarship, teaching and mentoring, use of sociology in public policy analysis, contributions to professional organizations, advancement of public awareness of sociological practice, or leadership in the use of sociological knowledge in non-traditional settings. Organization or academic titles (such as department chair, bureau chief, professor, etc.) are not, in the absence of other accomplishments, viewed as criteria of outstanding achievement.
Nominees must be current members of DCSS. Nominations remain active for three years. Submit your nominations to dcsociologicalsociety@gmail.com.
Morris Rosenberg began his career as Assistant Professor of Sociology at Cornell University in 1955, and moved to the Laboratory on Socio-environmental Studies of the National Institute of Mental Health in 1957. He re-entered the academic world in 1974 as Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1974, and joined the faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park in 1975, where he taught until his death in 1992. (More on UMCP website.) The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale is a widely-used measure in social science research.
The Anna Julia Cooper Award for Public Sociology by a Community Organization
The Anna Julia Cooper Award for Public Sociology by a Community Organization is given to a community group using the methods and insights of sociology in its work to improve life in the DCSS service area. The community organization should have a clearly defined purpose that involves addressing specified socially produced inequalities. In the analysis of the causes or the solution to these inequalities, the organization should use methods of sociological research—case study, survey, historical comparative analyses, secondary data analysis, participant observation, etc.—and/or concepts from sociological theory and research as ways of framing the problem they seek to remedy.
The organization may be nominated by any DCSS member. The nomination should be made in a letter to the President of DCSS describing the purpose of the organization, the nature and scope of the problem it seeks to address, the steps it has taken in researching the problem, the remedies it is providing or hopes to provide, and what it has so far accomplished. The letter should be accompanied by a general overview, including the history, purpose, and achievements of the organization. Please submit the nomination to dcsociologicalsociety@gmail.com.
An appropriate representative of the honored organization should be prepared to give a brief presentation on its work at the awards event.
For more on Anna Julia Cooper, see “A Washington Life: The
Sociology of Anna Julia Cooper” in the May
2016 issue of The Sociologist, the public magazine of the District
of Columbia Sociological Society. See also, "Dr. Anna J. Cooper: MVP of D.C. Education" by Claudia Swain at Boundary Stones, the local history website of WETA.