The Bonner Award
The Award
The Bonner Award is named in honor of Dr. Thomas N. Bonner, past president of Wayne State University and The Academy of Scholars. In the spirit of Dr. Bonner's commitment to strengthening programs in arts and sciences, the prize was established in 2000 to recognize the best recent book in English on the theory and practices of the Liberal Arts, with special consideration given to studies bridging the "two cultures" of the sciences and the humanities.
A monetary prize is awarded in a two-year cycle to a book published within the cycle. In the second year, a Call for Nominations is issued with an early December deadline. All nominations must be accompanied by two copies of a book, as indicated in the instructions below. The recipient of the Prize is announced by spring of the following year and the author(s) invited to participate in a symposium on the book in the fall on the Wayne State University campus.
2021-22 Competition
The winner of the 2021-22 competition has been announced!
| 2021-22 |  | Invisible Ink - a memoir |
Past Recipients
| 2019-20 |  | Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life |
| 2017-18 |
| A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes by Adam Rutherford The Experiment Publishing |
| 2015-16 | Not awarded | |
| 2013-14 |
| Being Mortal. Medicine and What Matters in the End |
| 2011-12 |
| The Artist's Eyes: Vision and the History of Art |
| 2008-09 |
| Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism Citation |
| 2006-07 |
| Echo Objects: The Transformative Work of Images |
| 2004-05 |
| The Future without a Past: The Humanities in a Technological Society |
| 2002-03 |
| How to Win the Nobel Prize: An Unexpected Life in Science |
| 2000-01 |
| The Sacred and the Secular University |
About Thomas N Bonner
The Thomas N. Bonner Book Award is given in memory of former WSU President Thomas N. Bonner. Thomas Neville Bonner was vice president and provost at the University of Cincinnati (1967-71), and president of the University of New Hampshire (1971-74) and president of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y from 197478. His final university presidency was as Wayne State University's seventh president from 1978-82. He retired from the Wayne State faculty in 1997 and passed away in 2003 at the age of 80.
A widely known medical historian who taught at WSU as a distinguished professor of history after stepping down from the presidency in 1982, Dr. Bonner was one of the leading medical historians of his generation. He published seven pathmarking books in the field of American medicine. His seminal work, entitled Becoming a Physician: Medical Education in Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States, 1750-1945, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. When he retired, he donated $50,000 to the Academy of Scholars to establish the Thomas N. Bonner Book Award.
Contact
For further information, contact Robert N. Frank, M.D. The Robert S. Jampel, M.D., Ph.D. Professor of Ophthalmology and Professor of Anatomy/Cell Biology at rnfrank@med.wayne.edu or telephone at (313) 577-7613. Books to be sent as entries in the next award competition should be sent to Dr. Frank at the Kresge Eye Institute, 4717 Saint Antoine Street, Detroit, MI 48201.