Weinberg Memorial Library 2017 Bonnie W. Oldham Library Research Prize Winners

The Weinberg Memorial Library is pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 Bonnie W. Oldham Library Research Prize.

Graduate Prize

Christina Gavalas and Marjorie Toron, who are pursuing master’s degrees in occupational therapy, were selected as the winners of the 2017 Library Research Prize for graduate students. Their group project for OT 501: Leadership in Occupational Therapy required them to find primary sources beginning with the founding of their profession in 1917. In their application essay, they said, “We can truly attest to the ‘golden gem’ of a library that we have access to, both on campus and online.”

An Honorable Mention in the graduate category was given to Katelyn Moyer, Daniel Dolphin, Robert Roncek, and Steven Roughton, who are graduate students in the University’s Doctor of Physical Therapy Program. Their submission was a systematic review on “The Effect of Depression on Functional Mobility in Older Adults Following Hip Fracture Surgery,” which they presented as a poster at the Combined Sections Meeting for the American Physical Therapy Association in San Antonio, Texas in February. 

Undergraduate Prize

The judges’ selection to receive the 2017 Library Research Prize for undergraduate students was Kathleen Reilly, a history and philosophy double major with a women’s studies concentration. Reilly, a member of the Honors Program and the Special Jesuit Liberal Arts Honors Program, submitted her honors thesis, “Girls at the ‘U’: A History of Coeducation at The University of Scranton.” The idea for this project came from her duties as a work study student in the Library’s Digital Services Department, where she spent time scanning old newspaper clippings about the University. To complete her thesis, she spent “countless hours” researching primary documents in the Helen Gallagher McHugh Special Collections and University Archives, as well as on the computer gathering information from publications available via the Library’s Digital Collections website. In her application essay, she stated, “Because of the abundance of resources offered by the Weinberg Memorial Library and the support of the librarians, I was able to turn my idea sophomore year into a detailed, comprehensive history of an important part of the University’s past.”

Honorable Mention awards in the undergraduate category were presented to nursing major Mariah Ruther, who submitted her nursing honors thesis, “Metabolic Syndrome in Women Who Take Second-Generation Antipsychotic Medications”; occupational therapy major Kerry Ann Randall, who submitted a literature review on “Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy”; and exercise science major Michael Ramsthaler, who submitted an informative essay titled, “Hazing: Breaking Laws and Breaking Teams.”

Prize winners were honored at a reception on Thursday, May 11, 2017 in the Heritage Room of the Weinberg Memorial Library.

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