The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce a total of $19,600 in award money to the 12 winners and seven honorable mentions in the 2024 Kenneth L. Proulx Memorial Essay Contest for Ongoing College Students.

Currently enrolled college students (up to age 24) wrote on the topic of “Why is Gen Z the least religious generation?” This contest is named for Kenneth L. Proulx, one of FFRF’s most generous benefactors, who died in 2019. The cupola at Freethought Hall, FFRF’s office in Madison, Wis., is called the “Above Us Only Sky Kenneth L. Proulx Cupola,” or “Ken’s Cupola” for short.

The $1,000 prize for sixth place in the ongoing college competition is generously endowed by actor and FFRF Lifetime Member Madison Arnold. Arnold, who is 88, has given a $30,000 endowment as a living bequest, what he calls a “pre-quest.”

Essay contest winners, their ages, the colleges or universities they are attending and the award amounts are listed below. (FFRF seeks to distribute essay scholarship monies to a higher number of students, so ties — such as fourth place in this contest — are not regarded in the typical tie fashion, where, in this instance, fifth place would be skipped.)

FIRST PLACE
Sylvie Leyerle, 20, University of Illinois, $3,500
SECOND PLACE
Daksha Pillai, 18, Columbia University, $3,000
THIRD PLACE
Elias Abadi, 22, University of Southern California, $2,500
FOURTH PLACE (tie)
Armin Kiffmeyer, 19, University of Wisconsin, $2,000
Luke Ortiz-Grabe, 21, Colorado College, $2,000
FIFTH PLACE
Atira Claude, 21, Florida Atlantic University, $1,500
SIXTH PLACE
(MR. MADISON ARNOLD AWARD)
Kayleigh Clark, 20, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, $1,000
SEVENTH PLACE (tie)
Zoe Lilly, 21, University of Virginia, $750
Riley Barker, 22, University of Florida, $750
EIGHTH PLACE
Cassidy Taggart, 21, Rutgers University, $500
NINTH PLACE
Danae Daniels, 23, University of South Carolina-Upstate, $400
TENTH PLACE
Ta’Liyah Darden, 19, Fort Valley State University, $300
HONORABLE MENTIONS ($200 each)
Hannah Bartoletti, 19, Penn State University
Braelyn Caldwell, 21, Texas A&M University
Jasper Chiguma Jr., 20, SUNY Broome Community College
Melia Moorman, 19, University of Louisville
Anna Moseley, 21, Virginia Commonwealth University
Nicholas Spinetta, 23, University of Rhode Island
Michael Whittaker, 24, South Mountain Community College

FFRF thanks Lisa Treu for managing the details of this and FFRF’s other student essay competitions. We also would like to thank our volunteer and staff judges, including: Don Ardell, David Chivers, Eric Evans, Richard Grimes, Tim Hatcher, Dan Kettner, Jeffrey LaVicka, Sammi Lawrence, Katya Maes, David Malcolm, Kurt Mohnsam, Chris O’Connell, Andrea Osborne, JoAnn Papich, Brooks Rimes, Sue Schuetz, Rose Mary Sheldon, PJ Slinger, Kimberly Waldron and Karen Lee Weidig.

FFRF has offered essay competitions to college students since 1979, high school students since 1994, grad students since 2010, one exclusively for students of color since 2016 and a fifth contest for law students since 2019.

The winning essays will be reprinted or excerpted in the November issue of Freethought Today, FFRF’s newspaper.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 40,000 members across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.