Getting Started

Acceptable submissions must have a page count (exclusive of images, endnotes and bibliography) of 8-20 pages of double spaced text (about 2000-5000 words).  Photographic support is strongly encouraged.  A copy of each reference, or the cited pages if readily available, should be included in an electronic appendix which identifies each endnote.

The relevant period is from inception of Texas A&M in 1876 to the point in time ending twenty years prior to the most recent Final Review.  The scope of subject matter is sufficiently broad to cover the experience of a particular cadet and the decisions made by others that arguably affected the cadet experience.  A topic may be a discreet point in time or a span of time and may, if necessary carry forward from the relevant period to the present.  For example, subject matter may be as broad in time as “Women in the Corps, from W-1 to present” or as narrow in time as “Company W-1’s first year training program.”  

Subjects may include, for example:

Origin of the phrase “Gig Em”
The Frog Experience 1876 to present;
The New Area 1939 to present;
Housing the Corps 1876-present;
Housing the Corps 1920-1930;
Changes to Uniform and Brass;
The reinstitution of the RVs after WWII;
Mandatory Chapel;
The Daily Experience of Military Walk 1947; 
Cavalry training 1920-1950; 
The WWI Memorial, its creation, and its locations on campus; 
The Corps experience of Ike Morris ’33;
Parsons Mounted Cavalry, 1973-1993; 
A Cadet’s Week in 1927;
The Insignia of the Corps of Cadets 1910-1920;
Integration of the Corps and its Specialty Units;
Desegregation in the Corps; and
Game Days - Changes over time, from marchins to headgear

Entries will be judged by a three-member panel of persons having an interest or educational background in history and who are not Board Members, Directors, or Officers of the Houston A&M Club.  

The author of the paper adjudged the best by the panel will receive an award of Seven Hundred Fifty Dollars ($750) and the author of the paper adjudged the second best by the panel will receive an award of Five Hundred Dollars ($500). Each submission is accompanied by assignment of the associated copyright.   

Submission includes an assignment of the copyright in the work, together with representations of academic honesty and authorization to obtain confirmation of current enrollment as an undergraduate student of Texas A&M University at the time of submission.  The assignment will be to The Association of Former Students.  The entrant will retain the artistic right of attribution and the right to remove his/her name in the event editors so revise the work that the entrant no longer desires attribution.  

Submissions are made electronically, in PDF format, with copies of any photographs also provided separately in tiff or jpeg format in highest resolution available.

The Association may, but has no obligation to, collect these works for publication, such as in the Texas Aggie, on-line and/or as part of hardcopy works available for sale.

Click here to download the consent form