Lone Star College-CyFair recipients of this year’s Student Research Award said the award validates the hard work and time put into their project as well as demonstrates the encouragement, support and resources available to students.
Taking first place was Mark Kansteiner, a future history teacher who returned to school after working full time for several years after high school graduation. Tyler Stewart, a current Dual Credit student who will graduate high school in two more years, earned second place. A student in The Honors College at LSC-CyFair and the first in her family to even attend college, Yazmin Montes Gaitan, placed third.
All three winners took advantage of the LSC-CyFair Branch Library’s physical and online resources for their research projects from checking out books to finding journals, articles, news stories, and electronic books on Academic Search Complete, JSTOR and EBSCO databases.
“I think the experience of writing the paper, putting all of my sources together and being able to win the award gives me extra confidence for the future projects I have ahead. The biggest thing I learned in the process of writing the research paper is to take it step by step and follow a plan. The last thing you want to do is try to finish it all in one sitting,” said Kansteiner, whose paper was titled “A Eunuch in Charge: Zheng He as an Emblem for the Changing Ming Dynasty.”
Stewart said he learned how to synthesize disparate sources into a cohesive argument for his project titled “Charter Schools and Accountability.”
“To me, it's a useful exercise in rhetoric that will help me plan my future writings,” he said. “I spent a lot of time fine-tuning my outline, bolstering leaps of logic with additional evidence and amending my thesis to match my findings.”
With a goal to ultimately earn a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine, Gaitan’s drive to impact existing imbalances between the non-human and human animal world was reflected in her research project titled “Non-Human Animal Capabilities and their Threat: Speciesism.”
Gaitan said “Throughout this entire research experience, I was not only able to explore the fascinating capabilities of the non-human animal world and the hierarchies that invalidate them, but I was also able to grasp the detailed care that goes into the research process.”
Faculty nominate students from their summer sessions, winter mini-mester, and fall and spring semesters for this award. Funded through the Friends of the Library, the award with a cash prize recognizes the best student projects which effectively include information from multiple library resources.
Click here for excerpts of current and past winners’ research papers as well as award eligibility and project information.
Registration is under way for LSC-CyFair fall semester classes which begin Aug. 28. For information, go to LoneStar.edu/regcyfair.
