This Monday, members of the Leatherby Libraries and Chapman University community gathered to celebrate the winners of the Kevin and Tam Ross Undergraduate Research Prize. Kevin Ross, Associate Dean of the Leatherby Libraries, and his wife Tam, have been sponsoring this contest for a number of years. Kevin and Tam see information literacy as a key skill for Chapman University students to have, for the purposes of their conducting useful and relevant research that informs both the public and the academic community, as well as facing the challenges of adult life in the information age. The winners were all extremely dedicated students, who competed in a very strong race to demonstrate the value of their research, especially their use of library resources during that process. Papers submitted to the contest this year were on a wide range of topics, ranging from Film Production and Studies, to Biological Sciences, to Psychology.

First place winner was Maddie Gwinn, whose paper was titled “Countering the Current: The Function of Cinematic Waves in Communist vs. Capitalist Societies.”

Two men stand on the left, and two women on the right, with the young woman in the middle holding open a red certificate.
Left to right: Taylor Greene, chair of the Undergraduate Research Prize committee; Kevin Ross, Associate Dean of the Leatherby Libraries and sponsor of the contest; Maddie Gwinn; Charlene Baldwin, Dean of the Leatherby Libraries.

Second place went to Nicole Williams. Her paper, which was written for a course taught by Professor Anne Steketee, was titled “International Adoption: Its Rise in the United States and Downfall in the Education System.”

Two men stand on the left, with three women on the right. The young woman in the middle holds a certificate.
Left to right: Taylor Greene, Kevin Ross, Nicole Williams, Dr. Anne Steketee, Charlene Baldwin.

The third place winner was Felicia Viano. Her paper was titled “Aesthetic Activism: Protest Art in the Delano Grape Strike.”

Two women stand on the left, and two men on the right. The young woman second from the left is holding a red certificate.
Left to right: Charlene Baldwin, Felicia Viano, Kevin Ross, Taylor Greene.

Finally, Minh-Chau Vu won an Honorable Mention for her entry on her paper, “Consonant Acquisition in Infants with Cochlear Implants and Their Normal-Hearing Peers.”

Two men stand on the left, and two women on right. The young woman in the middle holds a red certificate.
Left to right: Taylor Greene, Kevin Ross, Minh-Chau Vu, Charlene Baldwin.

Many, many thanks to the members of the judging panel, who volunteered their time to read through the many stellar applications: Taylor Greene, Leatherby Libraries, Chair of Instructional Services (Chair of committee); Dr. Jeremy Hsu, Biological Sciences; Dr. Eileen Jankowski, English; Kristin Laughtin-Dunker, Leatherby Libraries, Coordinator of Scholarly Communications & Electronic Resources; Essraa Nawar, Leatherby Libraries, Library Development Coordinator; Dr. Jan Osborn, English.

All winning contest entries, and some of the winning papers, are available to read here. Congratulations again to these outstanding students!