Nominations for the 2023–2024 Hoopes Prize competition are no longer being accepted.

From the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes, Class of 1919, Harvard received a fund from which to grant annual awards to undergraduates on the basis of outstanding scholarly work or research. Mr. Hoopes was Curator of the City Art Museum in St. Louis for over 25 years. He was an expert on firearms, from the crossbow of the 16th century to modern handguns, and wrote widely in the field.

The fund provides undergraduate prizes to be given for the purpose of “promoting, improving, and enhancing the quality of education . . . in literary, artistic, musical, scientific, historical, or other academic subjects made part of the College curriculum under [f]aculty supervision and instruction, particularly by recognizing, promoting, honoring, and rewarding excellence in the work of undergraduates and their capabilities and skills in any subject, projects of research in science or the humanities, or in specific written work of the students under the instruction or supervision of the [f]aculty.” “An incidental objective or purpose” of the fund, as stated by Mr. Hoopes, is to “promote excellence in the art of teaching.” Awards are therefore also given to those instructors who have supervised and nominated the prize-winning works.

Student winners are awarded $5,000. Faculty nominators of winning projects are awarded $2,000. Written winning projects are bound and available in Lamont Library for two years.

For answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the Hoopes Prize, click the link.

For the 2023–2024 Hoopes Prize deadlines, click the link.