An essay competition might be a good way to get people involved.
There’s a few ways we could do this:
- Simply run it internally within the Philosophy Society.
- Sponsor a university-wide competition (one of the prizes being free membership to the club, of course).
- Align ourselves with a pre-existing, large scale essay competition. I found these so far: the Governor General’s Undergraduate Essay Competition(law and politics focused, open to all undergraduates in Australia, includes a cash prize); the Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay (run by the Australian Book Review, looks literature based); and the Dr Ross Ingram Memorial Prize (recently won by University of Newcastle’s Dr Mark Lock; health based). We could find an appropriate one (still looking…) and promote a satellite event of Newcastle uni students and / or club members.
My preference is for the second one – a uni wide competition run by the Philosophy Society.
We could form a question each year, possibly coinciding with a theme for the annual paperback collection.
I don’t see anything really popping up from the uni website when I search for what might already be out there. There might currently be a void.
This could potentially take off if we open it to the entire uni and select engaging topics.
We would need to decide on a prize, and any “terms and conditions” of entry.
What do you think?