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Research Prize Winners 2010 Winners
Paper Description Ms. Nielsen’s paper provides an examination of “the role the United States played in the Mozambican Civil War.” She writes on a “switch in doctrine” that occurred when the U.S. “went from supporting a terrorist organization, insurgency group, RENAMO, to supporting the Marxist government in power, FRELIMO.” This switch, Ms. Nielsen states, “occurred largely at the hands of the Department of State during the mid to late 80s,” resulting “in an abolition of the Reagan Doctrine in Mozambique,” which she views as a “monumental accomplishment” considering the era. She argues, “it was Secretary of State Shultz, along with Assistant Secretary Crocker who struggled with Congress for six years to prove to them the detriment it was to the United States not to support FRELIMO – even though it was backed by the USSR and was extremely socialist in nature.” Ms. Nielsen was one of just three Chapman students selected to present her paper to Mr. Schultz during his recent visit to the university. Essay on the Research Process and Use of the Library Ms. Nielsen began her research with an appointment with Rand Boyd, Special Collections & Archives Librarian and Liaison to the History Department. Rand assisted her in locating “U.S. policy and documents that surrounded the development of foreign policy from 1975-1992.” She used books from the Leatherby Libraries and “heavily utilized” the services of interlibrary loan, “requesting approximately twenty books.” Ms. Nielsen also used Chapman’s Rinker Law Library to locate Congressional Hearings before the Subcommittee on African Affairs and the Subcommittee on Africa, which provided more background on U.S. Cold War policy. In addition, she used Mozambican and Portuguese sources, including sources from the national archives in Mozambique. Ms. Nielsen also interviewed villagers during a visit to Mozambique. She found Aluka, a database she used during the library’s trial period arranged by Librarian Stacy Russo, most helpful. Through Aluka, which is a digital library of scholarly resources from and about Africa, she obtained approximately fifty percent of her materials. Ms. Nielsen concludes, “My ability to decipher the bias within resources and how to construct a narrative using diverse resources to create a truly original piece is something that will surely stay with me through graduate school.”
Paper Description Ms. Ganderup’s paper “focuses on the memory of Bloody Sunday, 1972, in which British soldiers killed thirteen Catholic Northern Irish civilians during a civil rights march, and the ensuing struggle over memory of that event.” She particularly examines “the official memory of the event, which was created by a British tribunal, headed by Lord Chief Justice Widgery, and was delineated by the tribunal’s ensuing report.” Although recent scholars have “dismissed” the report “as hegemonic,” Ms. Ganderup does not agree. Her analysis resulted in her conclusion “that the intent of the report was much more complex than simple hegemony, but rather to mediate between the Army and Catholic versions of the memory for a more acceptable official memory that would bring some peace.” Essay on the Research Process and Use of the Library Ms. Ganderup began her research with the Leatherby Libraries’ catalog. She located several books that provided helpful background information. She utilized library databases, including Dissertations and Theses: Full-Text and the JSTOR Irish Studies Collection. She also “relied heavily on the historical newspapers databases, particularly the historical New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Christian Science Monitor”to gain an “international understanding of the conflict.” Ms. Ganderup discussed the various stages of her research with Rand Boyd, Special Collections & Archives Librarian and Liaison to the History Department. He helped her find what she describes as “some of the most important sources in my project.” Librarian Boyd also explained how to analyze web resources, including how to determine the “reliability and viability” for her project. Beyond her research at the Leatherby Libraries, Ms. Ganderup conducted research abroad, including at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast.
Paper Description Ms. Freyer’s paper is a study of Vorticism, “an avant-garde visual arts movement” that emerged in London “in the waning days of the first decade of the twentieth century.” This movement came “on the wings of a literary movement of the same name” that “emerged under the tutelage of Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis.” Ms. Freyer’s research spans “the disciplines of history, art history, literary history, and cultural studies” to “reveal much about ‘Britishness’ and European nationalism in the days of early Modernism.” Nearly 100 years after the publication of the Vorticists’ literary magazine BLAST, Ms. Freyer suggests the Vorticists, contemporaries of the more successful Bloomsbury group and others, “are still worth our time.” Ms. Freyer conducted the majority of her research with the library’s electronic resources, including JSTOR, Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online, MLA International Bibliography, Project MUSE, and Dissertations and Theses: Full Text. She found ARTstor, a digital library of images, to be “an invaluable resource as an image source and organizational tool.” She also used sources she describes as “less conventional alternatives,” such as blogs. Ms. Freyer attended several library research instruction sessions during her years at Chapman. She believes these sessions have helped her hone her research skills. Ms. Freyer hopes to expand upon her work in graduate school. She concludes, “Successful library research habits are very important to me for this reason; I undertook this project with the knowledge that a career in academia would necessitate mastery of these very skills.”
Paper Description Ms. Maleenont researched “the Free Thai movement that emerged in America” following Japan’s invasion of Thailand after the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. She sought to answer the following question on the movement: “What determined its course as well as outcome?” Ms. Maleenont points out the two factors of Free Thai historiography that have already been established: “Its members’ desire to restore national sovereignty and the support of the Allies.” Her research of the Free Thai movement in China, however, revealed “a power undercurrent” of several elements, including members’ mistrust and political paranoia. Essay on the Research Process and Use of the Library Ms. Maleenont located what she calls “the most important secondary source in my project” at the library: E. Bruce Reynolds’ Thailand’s Secret War. She used JSTOR, Academic OneFile, and Academic Search Premier databases to locate additional secondary sources. In particular, the journal Far Eastern Survey, provided “interesting wartime articles on the movement.” Searches in the Dissertations and Theses: Full Text database helped her secure several resources she discussed in her paper. Ms. Maleenont credits the Interlibrary Loan department, specifically staff members Gina Wilkinson and Maria Yanez, with helping her obtain, “important rare books, documents, microfilms, sources in Thai language, and dissertations.” Her research also took her to other libraries, including the UC Irvine Langson Library and the library at Bangkok University. She believes “without a doubt” that she “will use the knowledge and skills” gained from her project “for any other research in the future.”
Paper Description Ms. Redfern’s paper “explores the ways in which gender equity and gender disparity issues exist within universities in general and Chapman University specifically, with a focus on faculty and tenure.” When conducting her research, she sought to answer several questions, including: Why are there so many more full-time male faculty members? Ms. Redfern found that the percentage of female tenured faculty at Chapman for 2008-2009 was 29%. This percentage is similar to national averages. She concludes that such a disparity is a “significant problem” that should be addressed. Essay on the Research Process and Use of the Library Ms. Redfern began her research with the Women’s Studies Research Guide available through the library’s website. She used the Web of Knowledge, Academic OneFile, and Academic Search Premier databases to locate articles. Ms. Redfern used EndNote Web, an online citation manager she accessed through the Web of Knowledge, to store relevant research articles. She read abstracts to determine the relevance of an article and limited her searching to peer-reviewed journals. The currency of articles was also important to Ms. Redfern, since she wanted the most recent statistics. Beyond articles and books, the Chapman University Fact Book for 2008-2009 was a valuable source. She found her attendance at library research sessions during her years at Chapman helpful in locating the most relevant databases to use for her research. Congratulations to the 2010 winners! Click here to view 2008's winners Click here to view 2009's winners
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