2026 LARRY MORRIS SCHOLARSHIP AWARD RECIPIENT

This year we were able to award a $1,500 scholarship to an outstanding doctoral student.

NICHOLAS BALDWIN is a PhD student in UNM’s Department of Department of English and American Literary Studies whose current research explores the spiritual dimensions of correspondence between Beat Generation writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, focusing on the letters they exchanged before publishing their landmark works Howl and On the Road. Nicholas’ project looks at how these early letters by Ginsberg and Kerouac work not only as personal communication but also as a space for spiritual reflection and artistic experimentation.

Faculty members at UNM praise Baldwin as an “intellectually curious” academic whose “scholarship opens a rich, new vein in the study of twentieth-century American poetry.” Nicholas is also noted for having “devoted himself to wide-ranging studies in his pursuit of knowledge,” and having “traveled widely, engaging in numerous experiences out of curiosity and a desire to experience everything he can.” Among many other places, Baldwin’s journey pursuing the mystical experience has taken him to the University of Stockholm for a master’s degree studying Jack Kerouac’s “spontaneous poetics” and to Italy for work as a yogi-in-residence.

Baldwin plans to use his $1,500 Larry Morris Memorial Scholarship prize to directly support living and travel expenses during time devoted to researching and writing about Ginsberg and Kerouac, which he aims to use as the basis for his doctoral dissertation.