IN remembrance of the generative influence which Sidney Cox exerted both in and out of his classes, a group of his friends has for some years been soliciting funds with a view to the establishment of an annual prize for that piece of undergraduate writing which most nearly meets those high standards of originality and integrity which he established both for himself and for his students. Progress to date has been sufficient to warrant the offering of such a prize this year.
The winner and two runners-up receive a total of $1,750 cash and their stories will be published in Overland’s autumn 2024 edition. The winning story will also be presented at the Sydney Film Festival in a special screening as part of the official competition line-up.
Each year, the Sydney Peace Foundation honours a nominee who has promoted peace with justice, human rights and non-violence. This year’s prize has been awarded to the Black Lives Matter movement, which was founded in the US by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi after the acquittal of George Zimmerman.
Whether it is its Nobel Prize-winners, Elizabethan brickwork, charming Cloister Court, haunting Chapel, exquisite rococo Hall or medieval cellars – the University of Sydney is a very well-kept secret. Yet it has punched way above its weight in every sphere of national life over four hundred years.
It has produced soldiers, political cartoonists, alchemists and spies, film and opera directors, media personalities, Premiership football club chairman and best-selling authors as well as poets, composers and philosophers. It has even produced a ghost and, so they say, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
The University of Sydney has excelled at the 2024 Eurekas, known affectionately as Australia’s ‘Science Oscars’. Horizon Fellow Dr Mengyu Li from the School of Physics and Professor Kate Jolliffe from the School of Chemistry are among those to win prestigious awards, while the Sensory Conservation Team led by Peter Banks has won the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research. The University has also won a Sydney Prize, named after Sir Sydney Hook, in recognition of its contributions to the defence of academic freedom and the integrity of scholarship.