April 24, 2009 – Our Town – OWU

Scarlett Rebman ’09 is congratulated by Theresa Byrd, chief information officer and director of libraries, for winning best student research paper at the sixth annual Celebration of Scholarship sponsored annually by Libraries and Information Services.

Photo by John Holliger

A ‘Celebration of Scholarship’
Annual LIS event recognizes student, faculty accomplishments

Ohio Wesleyan University student Scarlett Rebman ’09 seized the prize for best student research paper at the sixth annual Celebration of Scholarship sponsored by the University’s Libraries and Information Services (LIS).

Rebman says her paper, “Will Japan Seize Alaska?”: Tensions between the United States and Japan in the Early 1930s,” gave her “a glimpse into the nature of the labor of a historian.”

The Lexington, Ohio, resident was inspired to research and write the paper based on articles she discovered while working as an intern at the Richland County Museum. She completed the paper as part of a two-semester independent study with associate professor Xiaoming Chen for departmental honors in history. Rebman is a history and middle childhood education major.

After graduation, she plans to get married and move to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she will teach while her husband completes graduate school. Afterward, the newlyweds plan to spend time serving in the Peace Corps. Rebman says she has spent time in India, and hopes to be assigned to South Asia.

Other Ohio Wesleyan seniors who submitted works for this year’s LIS research paper competition and their topics were:

• Margaret Coleman, “Wealth Does Not Necessarily Precede Health: What Latin America and the World Can Learn from Cuba”
• Natalie Cunningham, “Archaeoastronomy on Cedar Mesa”
• Kelly Haines, “Ancient Comedy: A Comparison of Terence and Menander”
• Ryan S. Kim, “Tobacco Industry: Industry Analysis”
• Giang Le, “Shinto, the Religion of the Japanese Race”
• Edmund Livingstone, “Liberation”
• Rory McHale, “Bridge Over Troubled Water: Turkey’s Foreign Policy Orientation for the Greater 21st Century”
• Jessica Monroe, “Shared Social Meanings and Complex Equality”
• Justin Skaggs, “Analysis of Recessionary Periods in the United States:  1979 to 2008”
• Kaitlin Thomas, “Godless Communists:  The Attempt to Eradicate Organized Religion in the Soviet Union, 1917-1964”
• Amanda N. Thompson, “The Ugly Side of a Beautiful Country:  The Application of the Dependency Theory to Jamaica”

Participating on the panel of judges were Jeremy Baskes, Jed Burtt, Danielle Clarke, Erin Flynn, Tom Green, Bonnie Milne Gardner, Deb Peoples, Dee Peterson, James Stull, Peter Szabo, and Theresa Byrd, ex officio.

Theresa Byrd, chief information officer and director of libraries, discusses “Scholarship in the Digital Age” during the Celebration of Scholarship. Byrd says among LIS goals related to digitalization is the creation of an online journal for student honors papers, essays, and plays.

Photo by John Holliger

Byrd, OWU’s chief information officer and director of libraries, congratulated all of the students during the April 17 “Celebration of Scholarship,” noting that all of the entries were exceptionally well written. Byrd also recognized nearly 40 faculty members for their academic papers, publications, and other presentations completed during the 2008-2009 academic year.

She also updated the crowd on LIS news and initiatives, saying that she and her staff were working on several projects related to digitalization, or the shift from traditional print materials to electronic formats.

“We are really standing on the edge of a period of change,” Byrd said, adding that she believes Ohio Wesleyan is at the forefront of this change.

LIS goals related to digitalization include the creation of an online journal for student honors papers, essays, and plays, as well as the implementation of digitization initiatives tied to the OWU curriculum. Byrd currently is recruiting a faculty member to work with LIS on a pilot project.

“We are on the precipice,” she says, “and we are energized and excited by it.”

– Cole Hatcher