UIS announces winner of Outstanding Master's Thesis Award

The University of Illinois Springfield Research Board has awarded Environmental Studies master’s student Vera Leopold with the UIS Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award for the 2009-2010 academic year. Leopold’s thesis is entitled Feasibility Study for a Small-Scale Wetland Restoration at Jubilee Farm in Central Illinois.

Eight graduate programs nominated finalists for the award. Each of the submitted thesis/projects have, thus, already received departmental recognition for excellence and will be publicly honored at a reception on January 31, 2011.

“The Research Board was impressed with the high quality of all these scholarly works. Determining which among them should be singled out for special recognition was a challenging task,” said Lynn Pardie, associate vice chancellor for Graduate Education & Research.

UIS Outstanding Master’s Theses/Projects: Academic Year 2009-2010

The following students received their departments’ Outstanding Thesis or Project Award for 2009-10 and were nominated for the UIS Outstanding Master’s Thesis/Project competition:

Accountancy
Heidi Nance
A Study of the Relationship between Municipal Enterprise Activities and Fiscal Sustainability
Committee Chair: Dr. Leonard Branson

Communication (UIS Special Merit Award)
James K. Anderson
Laughter is Critical: An Analysis of the Sociopolitical Satire on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report Using the Propaganda Model as a Guide
Committee Chair: Dr. Amie Kincaid

Educational Leadership
Neil Calderon
Profiles of School Board Election Voters in Urban Central Illinois
Committee Chair: Dr. Dan Matthews

Environmental Studies (UIS Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award for 2009-2010)
Vera Leopold
Feasibility Study for a Small-Scale Wetland Restoration at Jubilee Farm in Central Illinois
Committee Chair: Dr. Tih-Fen Ting

History
John Marcos Reynolds
The Great Black Migration and Its Impact on the Neighborhoods of Chicago’s Black Old Settlers, 1914-1925
Committee Chair: Dr. Cecilia Cornell

Human Development Counseling
Sarah Chism
Coping with Fibromyalgia: A Phenomenological Inquiry
Committee Chair: Dr. Holly Thompson

Human Services
Jill Sonke
Development and Assessment of an Arts in Healthcare Program Model for Rural Communities
Committee Chair: Dr. Denise Sommers

Political Science
Michael Snyder
In Defense of Indeterminate Space: A Critique of Adorno’s Dialectics
Committee Chair: Dr. Richard Gilman-Opalsky