Daily Archives: May 3, 2012

WKU Students Receive Undergraduate Library Research Awards

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Bowling Green, Kentucky – Western Kentucky University students Christina Costa from Bowling Green, Kentucky, and Dominique Dillard from Louisville, Kentucky, were each given an undergraduate research award at a recognition ceremony in Helm Library on Thursday, April 26.  WKU Libraries and WKU University Experience faculty teamed up last year to begin offering the awards in an effort to recognize the important role of good undergraduate research in college academic success.

“It’s important for students to recognize the role research plays in their college experience and we try to do that as a part of the University Experience course,” said Sara McCaslin, University Experience Coordinator.

Dillard, a first-year student from the University Experience class at South Campus, was recognized for the best career essay. Costa, a second-year student from the University Experience class on the main campus, received an award for the best annotated bibliography.

According to Costa, who is currently undecided on her major, the experience was a positive one. “I greatly enjoyed researching for the annotated bibliography. It gives me a new avenue to explore for my future,” says Costa.

“Students and teachers in entry level courses need encouragement to keep going for the long stretch,” said Carol Watwood, WKU librarian and selection committee chair. “It is a great privilege to work with young people in higher education and watch them succeed.”

Dillard’s University Experience instructor was Kim Cunningham at South Campus and Costa’s was Paula Trafton on the main campus. Both students received a $100 cash award along with a plaque honoring their achievements. The winning documents, along with past recipients, are posted in TopSCHOLAR–WKU’s research and creative activity database–at http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ueul_award/. For more information, contact Carol Watwood, chair of the Research Award Committee, at 270-745-6977.

For details, contact Jennifer Wilson by telephone at 745.6977 or email at jennifer.wilson1@wku.edu

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Brothers at War

WWI Sheet Music

“Over There” sheet music with Norman Rockwell illustration, 1918.

Brittany Crowley, a student worker in Manuscripts & Folklife Archives, contributes this item about a recently processed collection:

Upon America’s entry into World War I in 1917 and the implementation of the Selective Service Act that same year, thousands of young men were drafted into military service. A recent addition to the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections contains letters of two of these WWI soldiers: brothers John and Andrew Johnson of Wooster, Ohio.

John, the eldest, was stationed at Camp Jackson and Camp Wadsworth, both in South Carolina, and Camp Upton, New York, before being sent to France in late 1918. While at Camp Jackson, John wrote to his mother of the numerous “vaccinations and inoculations” the soldiers must receive. John described that the shots made most of the men sick, but that they did not bother him at all. John also noted the prevalence of both venereal disease and influenza around the camps, thus leading to frequent quarantines.

John was sent to France in October of 1918, just a month before the war was over. Although he did not see any combat, John often wrote to his mother describing the conditions in war-torn France: “The French people here seem to be of the peasant class, the only thing they seem to have a good supply of is Beer and Wine…there is absolutely no candy to be had at any price.” As a farmer, John often compared techniques and equipment used in France to those used “back home.”

The younger brother, Andrew, was a student at Ohio State University before being drafted and sent to Camp Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky. While John was proud of his service in the Army, Andrew was far less patriotic; he spent much of his time attempting to get released. While Andrew mostly wrote to his mother of daily life at camp, he also described happenings in Louisville, including the ban on social activities due to the “Spanish flu” and a strike being conducted by the streetcar men (although he didn’t understand why they were striking considering they made “forty seven cents an hour”).  To see a finding aid for this collection click here.  To search for other World War I collections search TopSCHOLAR.

 

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