CWAC Journals
Did you produce phenomenal academic writing this year?
Submit to The Undergraduate Spectrum!
Professors and students can nominate any work from January to December 2026.
Nominate a piece of writing or visual art for the 2027 Newman Awards (Collegiate Seminar writing) and Spectrum Awards (writing in the disciplines).
Submission Guidelines
- We welcome submissions in any genre of prose writing produced as part of an undergraduate class in any discipline. In visual art, we welcome submissions of original, 2D student artwork - photography, painting, drawing, printmaking, digital, or mixed media.
- While we accept submissions throughout the year, our submission deadline is December 31.
- All submissions will be judged by Writing Advisers and faculty members.
- Finalists will be notified in late January.
- Winners will be published in the next edition of The Undergraduate Spectrum.
The Undergraduate Spectrum
A Brief History of The Undergraduate Spectrum
The Undergraduate, which was first published in 1991, is an academic journal devoted to showcasing exemplary work from the Collegiate Seminar Program. Spectrum was created in 1987 to honor exemplary writing across the disciplines. These journals merged in 2017 to form The Undergraduate Spectrum, a journal highlighting the diverse, artistic and rhetorical practice at Saint Mary's College of California.
2026 Newman & Spectrum Award Winners
The 2026 Undergraduate Spectrum will be published digitally this year, so all can access the rich diversity of rhetorical practice at Saint Mary's College of California. Here you will find the winners of the 36th annual Newman Awards for writing in Collegiate Seminar and the 38th annual Spectrum Awards for writing in the disciplines, as well as the Newman and Spectrum Honorable Mentions.
Newman Award Winners
SEM-150 | Looking Inward
Overcoming Injustice Through Awareness
Fiona Samuelson
SEM-250 | Looking Outward
Where Does Liberty Lie?
Matteo Romo
SEM-250 | Looking Outward
Hobbes’ Idea of a Leviathan isn’t Similar to the Devilfish, it is the Devilfish: Hobbes and Milgram as Endorsements of Imperialism
Sevanah Sandoval
SEM-327 | Looking Inward & Outward for Transfers
Knowledge as a Necessary Precursor to Freedom
Tani Black
SEM-350 | Looking Forward
The Value of Critical Thinking
Maddy Hunter
SEM-350 | Looking Forward
When Communities Clash: The Creative and Destructive Power of Violence
Arthur Quieroz
Spectrum Award Winners
WRIT-101 | Writing as Inquiry
When the Mirror Hurts
Madison Houle
ENGL-200 | Issues in Literary Theory
Speaking “Like a Man”: Roy Cohn’s Death Grip on Power in the Heteropatriarchy
Sevanah Sandoval
WRIT-201 | Writing and Research
Superman: It's the Hope That Saves You
Sierra Anderson
POL-310 | Politics and Race
Past Precedents and Future Obligations
Tyson Howard
THTR-312 | Theatre and American Cultures
Bringing Awareness to the Impact of Sexual Assault and Abortion: How John Proctor is the Villian and Dry Land Demand Change by Disrupting the Dominant Culture of Silence
Maddy Hunter
BIOL-342 Honors Contract | Advanced Human Physiology
The Anatomy and Physiology of the Voice and Beatboxing
Clarice Reinwald
TRS-363 Honors Contract | Visual Theology
The Antisemitism of the Christian Church: An Analysis of Christian Art
Sevanah Sandoval
POL-365 | Theories of Justice
Skeletons in the Closet
Rebecca Carranza
DANCE-401 | Dance and Performance Studies
The Westernization of Tango and Belly Dance
Sadie Ugoretz
PHIL-436 | Modern Metaphysics
Heidegger and the Question concerning Metaphysics
David Seganish
HIST-450 | Gown, Town, and Crown: Medieval Corporate Identities
History of the University of Padua
Evelyn Tackett
Honorable Mentions
Newman
Anna Emperador
For "Finding Meaning in the Message"
In SEM-350: Looking Forward
Professor Kathryn Koo
Jessica Okwubanego
For “Untitled”
In SEM-327: Looking Inward & Outward for Transfers
Professor Shawny Anderson
Spectrum
Martin Apacible
For “Reimagining Minecraft through Environmental Justice”
In JCL-330: Environmental Justice
Professor Pratik Raghu