Congratulations to Dr. Elizabeth Foulke (English) for receiving the Center for the Humanities 2021 Graduate Excellence Award! Foulke has successfully defended her creative dissertation, “Intimate Distances: An Archipelago, A Collection of Essays and Experimental Nonfiction Prose,” which seeks to disentangle the “single” female from its stigmas and stereotypes to rethink our notions of emotional and aesthetic intimacies and the ethical regard given to others. Foulke has also acted as an inspiring and committed pedagogue in the URI community, reimagining general education classes, developing nonfiction writing workshops, and mentoring new graduate students and teaching assistants. A humanities leader, Foulke has worked on a number of deeply engaged public-facing humanities-based projects. She is involved in a collaborative research project with the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s special collections, is a contributor to the Newport Middle Passages Port Markers Project, and serves as Editor-in-Chief for the literary journal Ocean State Review. She is a talented creative writer who has been published in Little Patuxent Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, and Grub Street Literary Magazine. Foulke won the Graduate Assistant Teaching Excellence Award in 2019, as well as the English Department’s Excellence in Service and Excellence in Teaching honors in the same year.