the Informer

COURTESY OF UNOTES

Bryan Sinche, assistant professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences, was honored by receiving the 2011 Belle K. Ribicoff Junior Faculty Prize last week.

The prize is a gift from Belle K. Ribicoff, a long-time supporter of the University.

The prize recognizes an outstanding untenured junior faculty member. Every three years, one of the prize recipients from the prior three years is chosen to hold the Belle K. Ribicoff Professorship for a period of three years.

“I am really happy to have received the award,” said Sinche.

The Belle K. Ribicoff Junior Faculty prize itself is a $10,000 cash prize.

Sinche was humbled to receive the award, and explained “I am not the only person who could have received the prize, as there are many other very worthy candidates who could have received it as well. I know I did a lot of good work in my five years here, but there are lots and lots of other professors who could have gotten the award.”

The main reason Sinche received the prize was, as he believed, for his work toward a current manuscript he is working on titled “Slave, Savage, and Citizen: Sailors in Nineteenth-Century American Literature.”

Sinche began working on the book project when he was awarded the Greenberg Junior Faculty Grant two years ago, where he was awarded funds for library travel, time to work on his book project, and two course releases.

“The manuscript is about the ways sailors were imagined by nineteenth century writers, and how sailors were viewed in many ways, as both citizens and savages. I was lucky to be in New England, an area that has all sorts of libraries in my field,” says Sinche.

Sinche spent a lot of his time in various libraries in the area such as the George W. Blunt Library in Mystic, the Henry Longfellow House in Cambridge, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass.

Sinche spent most of last year working on his manuscript, and explains it is nearly finished.

“Though I spent a lot of time on the manuscript, everyone in the faculty is deserving of receiving the Ribicoff prize, as every one of us does an exceptional job here,” stated Sinche.
“The Ribicoff prize has a mysterious selection process, as there are so many faculty that can receive it. When it is given, unlike grants, it is a prize, so it can be spent on anything,” said Sinche.

Sinche was very proud to receive the Ribicoff prize, and it was too soon for any solid decision on how was going to put the prize to use.

He is the third winner in the history of the award, which was established in 2009. The two previous winners are Michael Robinson, associate professor of history in Hillyer College, and Catharine Balco, assistant professor of painting in the Hartford Art School.