For the first time, the DiMenna-Nyselius Library had two categories for the Research Prize: Graduate and Undergraduate.
Congratulations to Sophie Spieler for winning in the Graduate category for her research and her paper “Masculine Responses to Social Chaos in Stephen Crane’s ‘Maggie: A Girl of the Streets'”. This paper was done as part of Dr. Emily Orlando’s American Novel class in the American Studies program. Dr. Orlando writes of Ms. Spieler’s paper, ” Sophie’s paper is a smart, sophisticated examination of masculinity in Crane’s realistic novella. Masculinity studies is fairly cutting edge in American literary scholarship. She’s made excellent use of primary and secondary sources.”
For the first time, a team won in the Undergraduate category. Congratulations to Michael DeLea and Russell Meister for the research on “Identification of Species Using Morphological Traits and Molecular Markers” done as part of Dr. Ashley McKay’s Vertebrate Zoology course. Dr. McKay writes, “Through their hard work and the help of library resources and staff, Russ and Mike, became incredibly efficient at locating appropriate materials for species identification. As mentioned above, the species ID project undertaken by Russ and Mike was highly original and ambitious; to my knowledge no other project like this has ever been initiated in the department. ”
The goal of the $250 Prizes is to attract the very best research papers/projects from courses taught in departments across the campus. It recognizes excellence in research projects that show evidence of extensive use of library services, resources and collections, and significant knowledge in the methods of research and the information-gathering process.