Distinguished Thesis Award 2025

Carissa Baconguis

Carissa Natalia Baconguis, M.A. English Studies, SCSU 2025 Distinguished Thesis Award recipient for her thesis, Sacred and Perishable Country of Want: Poems. The thesis chair was Dr. Sarah Green.

Carissa Baconguis’s thesis was nominated by the English Studies graduate program. The nominator stated, “Carissa’s is one of the most exciting voices in emerging poetry I have encountered in some time. Carissa’s ambitious and compelling work—her second collection, but first in English—assertively and deftly interweaves Filipino cultural references alongside of classical mythology allusions, fantastical/grotesque imagery, and a central narrative (the fictional love story of Dian and Carlos) of genderqueer intimacy and violence. Formally, she shifts between prose poems, stanzas, visual poems, and even an abecedarian, with an overarchingly consistent voice and tone that is both fierce and tender, provocative and wistful.”

Carissa is the author of Sacred and Perishable (Nine Syllables Press, 2025) and an instructor at the University of the Philippines Mindanao, teaching subjects in Art, Creative Writing, and English. Graduating from Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines, and St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, USA, she is the winner of the 2024 Nine Syllables Press Poetry Chapbook Contest Award and a recipient of the 2019 Dalisayan: Loyola Schools Award for the Arts. She has been published in Pa-Liwanag (Gantala Press/Tilted Axis Press, 2020), 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine Hong Kong, and Young Star Philippines.

The nominated theses are reviewed each year by the Graduate Faculty Committee of the St. Cloud State Faculty Association. More information on the SCSU Distinguished Thesis Award is available on the Culminating Projects website

Excellence in Leadership Awards

Congratulations to our graduate student recipients of the 2026 Department of Campus Involvement Excellence in Leadership Awards!

  • Abdukadir Abdullahi, Business Administration, MBA

  • Ayodele Ajayi, School Counseling, MS

  • Dheraj Behram, Educational Administration and Leadership, MS

  • Muhammad Hashier Muneeb Farrukh, Engineering Management, MEM

  • Abhilash Magi, Regulatory Affairs and Services, MS

  • Eberechukwu Nwankwo, English Studies, MA

  • Jaelyn Owen, Communication Science and Disorders, MS

  • Saharsha Reddy Singireddy, Regulatory Affairs and Services, MS

  • Kanchan Thakur, Information Assurance, MS

  • Rohitha Velugubantla, Regulatory Affairs and Services, MS

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