April 17, 2024
The Celebration of Scholarship Committee at Shawnee State University has announced the 2024 award winners for the annual graduate and undergraduate conference. The SSU Board of Trustee presents up to two awards each year to students enrolled at SSU and are participants in Celebration of Scholarship. The Trustees’ Award is for outstanding research that is investigative, project-based, inquiry-based, open-minded and/or exploratory. This year’s award is presented to Ashlyn Pfau for her research “You Can Be an Earth Warrior Too”.
The Excellence in Humanities Award was developed to showcase the research-based scholarship of students in the Humanities fields at SSU. The award is for outstanding research and writing projects in the arts, humanities, and social sciences that are investigative, project-based, and scholarly. This year’s recipient is Lauren Carter for her project “Investigating the Effects of Student-Teacher Writing Conference on Student Ability and Attitude”.
The Deans’ Award is chosen based on faculty nominations by the Deans of the College of Professional Studies and the College of Arts & Sciences for outstanding research papers. This year’s Deans’ Award is presented to Abigail McKinney for her paper “An Exploration of Spherical Geometry”.
The Poster Presentation Award recognizes outstanding displays on research topics and engaging presentations. This year’s undergraduate recipient is Nathan Johnson for his poster research on “Measuring the Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Nickel Diimine Sensitizers”. This year’s graduate recipients are Zayden Rinehart, Audrey Jenkins, Alexis Tompkins, and Cassidy Shumate for their poster presentation on “Using a Sensory Adapted Dental Environment to Determine a Change in Dental Anxiety for Neurotypical Individuals”.
The Library Research Award sponsored by the Clark Memorial Library recognizes excellence in the research for a student paper or project presented during the conference. This year’s recipient is Noah Nichols for his project “Science Simulations for Secondary Schools: How Virtual Laboratories Can Affect Classroom Enthusiasm and Motivation Regarding Science”.
This year’s Celebration of Scholarship conference at Shawnee State University featured 24 presentations given by 56 students. Recordings and abstracts of each presentation are available to view at shawnee.edu/cos.