Gerald J. Alred Professional Writing Challenge Award - Fall Semester

This award competition is by invitation only. Students enrolled in English 205, 206, and 207 as part of the UWM Milwaukee campus bachelor’s degree program are nominated by their instructor based on their demonstrated professional writing skills. Associate degree students and Flex program students are not eligible for this competition.

Nominees are selected to compete for a $500 prize! Winners will be selected by a panel of judges including UWM faculty and instructors and professional writers in the community representing various industries and media outlets. All entries will be reviewed anonymously and the judges will not know your name until the final selection is made. The first-place winner will receive $500 for the semester following their enrollment in English 205, 206, or 207 and therefore must be enrolled for at least one more semester to receive the scholarship. A second and third place winner will also be named but there is no monetary scholarship.

All participants will receive a certificate of participation and will be invited to an annual ceremony held in February.

This competition is held twice a year on the Fall UWM Study Day and the Spring UWM Study Day. Selected students who are enrolled in English 205, 206, and 207 during summer or fall 2024 will compete on December 13, 2024. Selected students who are enrolled in English 205, 206, and 207 during spring 2025 will compete on May 9, 2025. Your entry will need to address a specific business case that will be posted here at 10:00 am on the day of the competition. Please refresh your browser to see that case at that time along with the button to submit your entry. You will have two hours to upload your entry.

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Gerald J. Alred Professional Writing Challenge
Fall 2024 Case

Background
You are Willow Grassley, a full-time student and part-time social media specialist at The Grande, a historic, upscale hotel in your city that attracts celebrity athletes, business professionals, and entertainers. Your job is to promote the hotel’s brand, to closely monitor customers’ online reviews, and to provide weekly written reports to your supervisor. You also respond to comments and questions posted on your company’s social media platforms.

This week, you noticed several complaints from hotel guests about having been bitten by Cimex lectularius insects, more commonly known as bed bugs. One of the guests even posted two photographs of red marks on their lower legs that they stated occurred overnight at The Grande.

Although these public health pests are not known to transmit or spread disease, they can cause allergic reactions and inflammation due to components in their saliva (cdc.gov/dpdx/bed bugs, 2024). For most people, the itchy bites cause some discomfort and a poor night’s sleep. However, in rare cases, allergic reactions can be severe and even life-threatening. The Environmental Protection Agency’s website states that “the recent increase in bed bugs in the United States may be due to more travel, lack of knowledge about preventing infestations, increased resistance of bed bugs to pesticides, and ineffective pest control practices” (epa.gov/bed bugs, 2024).

Whereas you typically write generic, company-approved replies to the hotel guests’ likes and dislikes, you now need to consider a more thoughtful approach to how you respond to their posts. There were several cancellations the day the comments about the bedbug problem appeared online, and you did not directly state how the problem would be solved. First, you must address a complaint from Harold Lexington, a frequent out-of-town guest who had reserved The Grande for a one-night stay with membership points valued at $350. The points, which took five years and multiple stays for Lexington to accrue, were about to expire. Lexington, who always spends money at the hotel for meals and other amenities, cancelled their reservation after having read other customers’ complaints about the bedbugs but did so one day later than the hotel’s policy allows. The cancellation policy did not clearly state that membership points would be eliminated if a reservation was cancelled, even when a reservation was made before the expiration date. Lexington wants The Grande to restore the points used for the reservation so that they can use the free night’s stay after steps have been taken to ensure that guest rooms are bug-free. Lexington also wants compensation with additional membership points for the inconvenience of rescheduling their plans.

Your Task
Using strategies that you learned in your Professional Writing course about how to organize content about negative news, respond to Lexington in a correctly formatted one-page letter from your company to address their concerns. Explain the steps that hotel management has already taken regarding this pervasive problem. Include letterhead for The Grande and a fictitious address for Lexington. Your real name should not appear anywhere in the document.

Good Luck!