Scholarships Offered
The Department of Anthropology presently offers the Douglas A. Feldman LGBT Paper Award, Edwin S. Hall Jr. Scholarship, Marjorie Helen Stewart Award, and our Departmental Scholars award. Starting in 2026, the Department Scholar award will no longer be awarded to an Anthropology and a Community Justice major separately, but from a combined pool of applicants.
Eligible students should apply online. Note: If you are applying just for Anthropology Department awards, responses to the essay questions can be brief, like a couple of sentences.
Douglas A. Feldman LGBTQ Paper Award
Dr. Douglas A. Feldman believed in the Diversity mission at SUNY Brockport. This award is given for the best academic research paper on a topic related to the cultural aspects of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender experiences. The paper will be selected based on relevance, importance of the topic, excellence in research methods and/or theory, and original writing. The award winner and the runner-up are usually announced at the annual Diversity Conference where they are presented with their $1,000 and $100 awards, respectively.
Douglas A. Feldman was Professor Emeritus at the Department of Anthropology for a duration of 15 years. He received his PhD in Anthropology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His contributions spanned a range of topics including AIDS, global health policy, medical anthropology, human sexuality, social epidemiology, HIV prevention and interventions, and health services evaluation. He conducted research in the United States, sub-Saharan Africa, Zambia and Hungary. He is the author and/or editor of many publications, including Ethnicity and Health Care Delivery: Sexually Transmitted Diseases (2009), AIDS, Culture, and Gay Men (2010), AIDS, Culture, and Africa (2008), Global AIDS Policy (1994), and Culture and AIDS (1990). At Brockport he taught numerous courses like the “Anthropology of Sex,” “Culture and AIDS,” “Anthropological Perspectives on Global Issues,” “Applied Anthropology,” and “Medical Anthropology.” Dr. Feldman created the paper fund prior to his retirement in 2016. He passed away in 2020. His influence as a teacher and activist-scholar lives on with this award in support of undergraduate scholarship.
The Edwin S. Hall Jr. Scholarship
Edwin S. Hall Jr. received his PhD in Anthropology from Yale University. His 30+ seasons of archaeological and ethnohistorical fieldwork were conducted in northern and northwestern Alaska where he also served as a consulting archaeologist for the US Geological Survey and The North Slope Borough. He is the author of numerous articles and books, among them The Eskimo Storyteller: Folktales from Noatak Alaska (1975) and Northwest Coast Indian Graphics: An Introduction to Silkscreen Prints (1981). At Brockport he taught “Introduction to Archaeology,” “North American Archaeology,” “Culture Change,” “The American Indian,” and “Native American Art.” Dr. Hall chaired the Department from 1974 to 1986. An avid collector of contemporary Native American art, he retired from the University in 1992.
In his memory, this educational non-tuition expense grant of $1000 was created. It can be used for educational expenses at SUNY Brockport and is awarded to an Anthropology major who meets the following criteria: 3.4 or higher overall GPA, preference for junior standing, minimum of 15 credit hours in Anthropology earned at Brockport, demonstrated academic excellence and potential for the application of Anthropological knowledge to their chosen career.
The Marjorie Helen Stewart Award
Marjorie Stewart held a DPhil in anthropology from Oxford University and conducted fieldwork in Nigeria where she investigated the pre-colonial history and socio-political organization of the Borgu Kingdom. Her publications include Borgu and Its Kingdoms: A Reconstruction of a West Sudanese Polity (1993). At SUNY Brockport, Stewart taught courses on Africa, China, Anthropological Theory, Magic and Witchcraft, Gender, and Language and Culture. She served as chair of the department from 1994-1999. When Stewart passed away in 1999, she remembered the Department of Anthropology in her will, and in turn, the department created this award in her name.
This is an educational award for an Anthropology major, preferably a graduating senior, who demonstrates academic excellence.