Applications being accepted for 2020-21 Hunter Scholar Award
The search is underway for the 2020-21 recipient of Hunter Library’s Hunter Scholar Award.
The award is presented to a Western Carolina University faculty member who champions WCU’s library and whose plans for research and scholarship highlight the essential partnership between faculty members and Hunter Library resources.
Sloan Despeaux
This year, in response to faculty feedback, the graduate assistant and course release are optional parts of the award. Applications that forgo one or both incentives will be considered. All Hunter Scholars receive $400 in financial support and a private study room in Hunter Library for the fall and spring semesters.
Sloan Despeaux, the 2019-20 Hunter Scholar, is currently developing her project, which centers around the creation of a searchable, online database for the mathematical questions and their solutions, which first appeared in the Educational Times in the 1840s. The Educational Times was a monthly journal that, in its more than 60-year existence, published more than 18,000 mathematics questions from amateurs as well as from established university mathematicians.
Despeaux says the Hunter Scholar Award has given her a valuable opportunity to work with Mark Holliday, her colleague in computer science, along with two of his capstone students and a history graduate student on “a truly interdisciplinary project.” She will present the results of her project to the university community during fall semester 2020.
Award applicants consult with their departmental-specific Hunter Library subject specialist to develop applications with the goal of demonstrating how robust use of library resources and services is critical to the success of their research project.
Sarah Steiner, the library’s head of research and instruction services, chairs the award committee and encourages faculty to reach out with inquiries about details of the award, and to apply. All full-time tenured faculty and tenure-track faculty may apply. Applications are being accepted through Jan. 15, 2020.
For more information, visit this website.
