About Annie Balocating (1979-2018)

Annie Balocating was an MSU/Residential Option in Arts and Letters (ROIAL) alumna, where she was an avid poet and active in community efforts to assist refugees of Sudan. After graduating, she and her husband Jeremy Couillard (also a ROIAL alumnus) moved to Brooklyn, NY, where Annie would earn both her M.A. and M.P.A., and where she co‐founded the Rwanda Research Group. Her M.A. thesis on Rwandan genocide memorials and collective remembrance was nominated for the 2009 Hunter College Shuster Award for Outstanding Thesis, and her Rwanda research has been featured in Peace Review. As special Assistant to the University Associate Dean and Deputy to the Senior University Dean at City University of New York (CUNY), Annie worked to improve college prep programs for struggling schools throughout NYC. She was passionate about changing the world and donated her time and talents to countless organizations and volunteer efforts. The Balocating Undergraduate Prize for Poetry was established in 2011 in her name, which awards $500 annually to an MSU undergraduate poet for one poem.