College Theology SocietyServing Church and Academy Since 1954

The College Theology Society honors excellence in scholarship by presenting three awards each year.  These are the Best Book Award, the Best Published Article Award, and Susan G. Perry Award for the Best Student Essay.  The deadline for submissions this year is Wednesday, December 15, 2023.  Submissions should be directed to Dr. Mary Roche, chair of the Awards Committee, at the addresses listed below.


Criteria for the Awards:

  • For the book and published article awards, submitting authors must be current members of the College Theology Society, with dues paid for 2023 by the submission deadline of December 15, 2023.  Now is a good time to check your membership status.
  • The membership and dues requirements are waived for graduate students.
  • For the book and article awards, eligible material must have been published in 2023.
  • For the graduate student essay award, eligible material must be unpublished, outstanding, course work that was completed in the 22-23 academic year.
  • Graduate essay submissions should be prepared according to the instructions pertaining to style for manuscript submission to the CTS’s journal Horizons, and including the practices that ensure the review of essays is blind for reviewers. See the guidelines linked at the bottom of the page here: http://collegetheology.org/Horizons
  • Members may submit one, and only one, item in each category.
  • Current members of the Awards committee may not submit their own materials for either the book or article award during their years of service on the committee.

If you are submitting a book published in 2023, send (or have your publisher send) three copies of your book to:

Mary M. Doyle Roche

Dept. of Religious Studies

College of the Holy Cross

One College Street

Worcester, MA 01610

If you are submitting an article published in 2023, please send it as a PDF attachment to Mary Roche at mroche@holycross.edu.


If you are submitting a graduate student essay completed in AY 22-23 (an unpublished essay of superior quality written for a graduate course), please send it as an attachment, with identifying information on a separate page, to Mary Roche at mroche@holycross.edu.


All who submit a book, published article, or student essay should receive an acknowledgement of receipt of materials by January 15, 2024


Winners are expected to attend our upcoming annual meeting at Regis University (Denver, CO), May 30-June 2, 2024.


We are always looking for new members for the Awards Committee – if you would like to serve on this committee, please contact Mara Brecht.


See past award winners.


If you have any questions, please email Mary Roche (mroche@holycross.edu) or Mara Brecht.


The College Theology Society is a registered, non-profit professional society and a Related Scholarly Organization of the American Academy of Religion.

Email: secretary@collegetheology.org

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