Contest Requirements

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences invites you to participate in our annual liberal arts education essay contest during the academic year 2024-2025. The contest is open to all currently enrolled Butler undergraduates who have completed two or more semesters at Butler or another post-secondary liberal arts institution, and the student who writes the winning essay will win a $1000 prize. Past essay contest winners are not permitted to enter the contest. The winning essay will be posted on the Liberal Arts and Sciences website.

The submitted essays will be judged by a committee of Butler University faculty drawn from various disciplines.

The prompt for this year’s essay is: The Connections between Self-Care, Mindfulness, and the Liberal Arts

Self-care and mindfulness are two concepts that have become common points of interest in order to live more stimulating and thoughtful lives. In what ways has your liberal arts education and its attendant experiences allowed you to better practice self-care and mindfulness?

Contest Requirements

Limit yourself to 1,000 words and submit your essay as an attachment by March 16, 2025 to las@butler.edu. Essays over 1,000 words will not be considered. The format of your paper should conform to the following standards:

  • Single spaced
  • One-inch margins
  • Twelve point font
  • Conventional book-print fonts, such as Times, New Times Roman, Lucinda Bright, etc. No novelty fonts.
  • Give your essay a title (no more than one line please)
  • Title your attachment Lastname_FirstNameLAScontest.doc.
  • Make sure that your email includes contact information (name, address, phone number, email address). Do not include your name or contact information within the file, as these essays will be blind-reviewed.

Your submission will almost certainly be richer if you avail yourself of the resources and commentaries posted at the LAS Faculty Perspectives webpage linked below. You are not expected necessarily to agree with these commentaries or to quote from them, but reading them will certainly help deepen and vary your thinking about the topic. Please note that by submitting an entry, you are giving us permission to post your essay on the Liberal Arts and Sciences website.