Six students have won 2020-2021 University Libraries Undergraduate Research Awards
The students were selected by a ten-member review panel made up of Libraries faculty and teaching faculty from across campus. The winners received a monetary award and personalized award certificate.
This year’s winners are:
Garnet Track (juniors and seniors)
Top Prize (three-way tie) $500, Nicole Chandonnet, a graduating senior and history, political science and economics major, for “Memorialization of J. Marion Sims in Columbia, South Carolina,” for her South Carolina Honors College senior research thesis. Thomas J. Brown, Department of History, is the supporting faculty.
Top Prize (three-way tie) $500, Hannah Martin, a rising senior and English major, for “‘I think the king is but a man’: Construction of Empire in the Chronique Anonyme Universelle,” for her English 399: Independent Study class. Scott Gwara, Department of English, is the supporting faculty.
Top Prize (three-way tie) $500, Amelia Parkes, a graduating senior and Russian and French major, for “‘I am simply Russian’: Post-revolutionary Russian Society in the USSR and Abroad Through Zoshchenko’ Satires and Berberova’s Billancourt Tales,” for her South Carolina Honors College senior research thesis. Judith E. Kalb, Russian, is the supporting faculty.
Honorable Mention (two-way tie) $175, Jill Boggs, a graduating senior and political science, history and art history major, for “An Anonymous and Peripheral Hero:Race and Politics in William Ranney’s Battle of Cowpens,” for her Art History 501 class. Susan Felleman, Art History & Film and Media Studies, is the supporting faculty.
Honorable Mention (two-way tie) $175, Lilian Hutchens, a graduating senior and geography major, for “Opportunities for Improved Landscape-Level Conservation Planning in the Congaree Biosphere Region,” for her South Carolina Honors College senior research thesis. John Kupfer, Geography, is the supporting faculty.
Black Track (freshmen and sophomores)
Top Prize $150, Weston Watts, a rising sophomore and mathematics major, for “Tolkien and his Muses: An Analysis of the Influences on the Author’s Work,” for his English 102 Honors class. Erica K. Fisher, English, is the supporting faculty.
The University Libraries Undergraduate Research Awards reward excellence in undergraduate use of library resources and services and demonstrate the contribution of the Libraries to student learning. They highlight the value of information literacy by requiring students to describe their research process as part of the application procedure and encourage faculty to create assignments that engage students in the use of library resources. Since the start of the awards 14 years ago, 51 students have been recognized with more than $18,400 in monetary prizes.
To be eligible to win, applications must be received by the annual deadline and include:
- Application form
- 500-700 words describing their research process and use of library collections, resources and services
- Letter of support from a faculty member
- Final version of the research project
- Bibliography of all sources consulted
The winners contribute their projects to Scholar Commons, the institutional repository to preserve, collect and disseminate the research and scholarship of the University of South Carolina.