The Ann Early Award is given every year to a Women's and Gender Studies minor in recognition of academic achievement in the minor and service to the program. The award is given in honor of Ann Early, who directed SMU's Women's Studies Program in the 1980s. Professor Early was instrumental in introducing the study of women into the SMU curriculum in the late 1960s, when challenges to male bias in academe (and in life) were still considered revolutionary, and were potentially ruinous to the careers of female scholars.