The Fifth Annual
BCC Reads! Scholarship Awards

Scholarship Rules and Submission Procedures

Scholarships: BCC offers five individual scholarships in conjunction with our BCC Reads! program. One of these is reserved exclusively for submissions from students currently in a developmental English course. Each scholarship will pay one quarter's tuition costs, up to a maximum of $932.00. (Winning group submissions will result in the award being divided equally among the group members.)

Eligibility: All BCC students enrolled for Winter term 2007, full- or part-time in an academic transfer course or a professional/technical program, are invited to apply. An individual applicant may apply for a single scholarship and with a single submission only.

Originality:Preference will be given to those entries that draw original, insightful inferences -whether intuitive or analytical-from the text.

Submissions: Students interested in applying must:

  1. Read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.


  2. Create a presentation that addresses the themes of the book and the problems and possibilities presented, using the following guidelines:

    • A wide range of formats will be accepted: students may write an essay, create a software program, design a visual interpretation, perform a dance or musical interpretation, produce a website, for example.
    • Preference will be given to those projects that either connect with the local community or connect with the student's own experiences, whether in this or another country.
    • Submissions may deal with any aspects that interest the applicant:

      Ethnographic-war story collections, essays, memoirs, for example.*
      Cultural Historical
      Economic Literary
      Social Political
      Artistic Technological
      Multimedia Other

    *The BCC Reads program is sponsoring a special story-collecting project this year. Entries submitted for that project are eligible for this scholarship contest. For more information on the story-collecting project, see http://www.bcc.ctc.edu/liberalarts/

  3. Obtain an endorsement from a faculty member concerning the suitability of a proposed project. Students may gain such an endorsement whether or not they happen to be in a course that is studying The Things They Carried. The project may result from a course assignment, an extra-credit project, or simply the initiative of a student who wishes to try for an award. Endorsements may be provided by teaching faculty, library faculty, and faculty associated with the various laboratories. Faculty members may not judge their own students.

Due Date and Submission Requirements:

  1. All entries must be submitted no later than Thursday, February 21, 2007, at 3:00PM. Written papers should be in hard copy as well as electronic, since they are checked for originality.


  2. To be eligible, entries must be accompanied by:
    • a faculty endorsement
    • a brief statement by the applicant (100 words or less)
      • indicating the nature of the submission (interpretive dance, software program, essay, website, and so forth);
      • explaining clearly its connection to The Things They Carried;
      • indicating current enrollment in a BCC developmental English course (if applicable);
      • indicating permission as to whether or not the submission can be included in a display during Spring quarter. (Students' decisions to grant or not to grant permission for display will not affect judging in any way.)

  3. Submissions should be made to one of the following locations:


    4. The Secretary, Humanities Division R230
    The Secretary, Science Division L200
    The Secretary, Social Science Division A251
    The Secretary, Business Division A242
    The Secretary, IR N212
    North Campus, W100

  4. Winners will be announced during the week of March 5, 2007.
BCC Reads! is sponsored by:

BCC Reading and Writing Lab
Library Media Center
BCC Center for the Liberal Arts
Bellevue Community College Association of Higher Education