Sidney prize is an award that honours people or organisations that have contributed to social change and improved human lives. The prize is given out on a national basis and has been awarded to a number of groups including the Black Lives Matter movement, an international organisation devoted to promoting human rights and non-violence; and the Sydney Opera House, an iconic Australian cultural landmark. The prize is named after the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute founder Sidney Farber who was a pioneer in leukemia research. The work he carried out in his lifetime made a huge impact on cancer treatment and saved many lives.
There are a number of sidney prizes offered to students across a wide range of subject areas. The Overland Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize is a popular contest that seeks moving, powerful and original short fiction on the theme of travel. It is open to writers from Australia and around the world at any stage of their writing careers. The winner will receive $5000 and be published in the autumn issue of Overland. Two runner-up stories will also be published in the same issue.
The Sidney Hook Memorial Award is offered to scholars of national distinction in three areas — scholarship, undergraduate teaching, and leadership in the cause of liberal arts education. The Society honors this idealistic man who believed that science majors should emerge from Yale with a deep understanding of the humanities and social sciences, and that nonscience majors should have a strong grounding in science. The award is funded by a bequest from the Lucy Firth Foundation.
In 2004, New York Times columnist David Brooks and William Zinsser won the SS Sidney Prize for their essay, “The Coddling of the American Mind.” The article explores student hypersensitivity, which leads to a sense of victimhood that prevents them from preparing for the real world. Other articles have won the award, including one by Amanda Hess on online sexism and another by the New York Times’ Emily Bazelon on a high school’s ban on a book about sexism.
The 73rd annual Hillman Prizes, sponsored by The Sidney Hillman Foundation, were announced today. This year’s Sidney Awards recognize a New York Times investigation of Haiti’s colonial debt, ProPublica/New Yorker’s reporting on hospice privatization and a series of agenda-setting videos explicating corporate greed from the website More Perfect Union. The Sidney Prize is named in memory of a Phi Beta Kappa member who was an idealist in his teaching, scholarship and leadership.