Every year in the spring semester, the Graduate
Studies Committee presents awards for graduate
students based on their major scholarly work,
as described:
"The award is an opportunity
to honor outstanding scholarly
and creative works by graduate
students, either applied or research-based.
Papers or applied, visual, or creative
art projects should be focused
on areas of importance in the student's
discipline. The format should be
consistent with discipline/program
guidelines.
"To be eligible for consideration,
all papers must have gone through
a formal program review/defense
process and be approved by the
respective faculty committee as
meeting the requirements of the
program. Nominees must either be
currently enrolled in a graduate
degree program or, more likely,
must have completed their studies
no more than one year before the
time of the paper/project submission.
"Student papers/projects must
be formally nominated, in writing,
by the Program Director or Department
Chair, using procedures for nominations
established by the Department.
Nominations must be submitted by
April 1 and include:
----at least an abstract of
the paper/brief project description—though
a full electronic copy of the work
is preferred, and
----a letter of nomination
to the Dean of Graduate Studies
and the Graduate Studies Committee.
In the letter, the Program Director/Department
Chair should:
identify the specific contribution
of the work to the field,
verify that the work has
been approved by the student's
thesis/project/dissertation faculty
committee and,
certify that the work is
primarily that of the student.
Other entry materials may include
but are not limited to publication-ready
manuscripts, visual displays of
concepts, graphic designs, photographs,
interactive media projects, CD-ROMs,
DVDs, and websites."
Please note that nominated work
should be a dissertation, thesis,
or graduate project, or represent
an equivalent amount of work. Normally,
papers for individual classes would
not be considered substantial enough
for this competition. If you wish
to nominate work which is not a dissertation,
thesis, or project, you should include
justification for the committee's
consideration of this work.
A subcommittee of the Graduate
Studies Committee will review submissions
to determine the winners. The committee
will consist of a five-member panel
of judges, the composition of the
panel is three graduate faculty members
with experience reviewing scholarly/creative
works from various disciplines (at
least one from GSC); one of the two
GSC student representatives, and
the Dean of the Graduate Studies.
General criteria for award
selection:
significance of the ideas,
issues and/or objectives of the
work (to be specified in the
document and letter of nomination)
relevance and/or potential
benefit to the field/practice
quality of writing, technical
execution
rigor of the research design,
analysis and conclusions (as
applicable)
creativity in project design
and replication potential (if
applicable)
the overall quality of the
student's work and its consistency
with meritorious recognition."
The award will include a check
for $500. Two awards are granted
each year. The awards will be presented
at the Student Research Expo in late
April.
Work must be completely finished
and approved, so work in progress
that may be coming for May graduation
will have to wait for next year's
awards. Students who graduate d in
Spring or Summer of the preceding
year or January or Spring of the
current graduating year are eligible
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