{"id":9190,"date":"2017-04-04T11:05:13","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T15:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.brown.edu\/libnews\/?p=9190"},"modified":"2017-04-04T11:05:13","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T15:05:13","slug":"research-excellence-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/libnews\/research-excellence-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Winner of the 2017 Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Library Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brown University Library is pleased to announce the winner of the 2017 Undergraduate Prize for Excellence in Library Research: Vaughn Campbell ’18<\/strong>, an International Relations Concentrator.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Vaughn Campbell ’18<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vaughn submitted a paper entitled, \u201cBrown \u00adin\u00ad China: Brown\u2019s Role in the American Missionary Project of the Early Twentieth Century,\u201d written in the spring of 2016 for Naoko Shibusawa\u2019s course \u201cHIST1554: History of American Empire.\u201d The paper describes a collaboration between Brown University and Shanghai College in 1920. Vaughn says:<\/p>\n

I did the bulk of my research in the Hay Archives, paging through thick files of personal articles, searching for documents relating to these individuals\u2019 time and ambitions in China. I supplemented this with both broad contemporary accounts and secondary historical works found in the stacks of the Rock or through the Library\u2019s online resources. Having never been able to work in the Hay before, or really with any archival resources, I thoroughly enjoyed having such a close connection to the original, 100-\u00adyear-\u00adold documents of these three professors, as well as working with the Hay librarians to discover and locate these rare documents.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Professor Shibusawa wrote, \u201cWhat I appreciated about Vaughn\u2019s paper is that every year when I lecture on Chinese student missionaries to China, I ask\u00a0the 80-120 students in the class, ‘Does anybody want to research what Brown students were doing?’ Nobody took me up on it except Vaughn when he did so last year.”<\/p>\n

One of the judges wrote:<\/p>\n

Building on scant University records, the author creates the history of Brown-in-China in 1920. To this end he pieces together records, letters, and a survey undertaken in rural China from faculty involved in the program; newspapers and China Mission Year Books from the period; and most interestingly, photographs and their corresponding notes from the files of the professor who founded the program. This was the student\u2019s first use of the Hay Library and first attempt at archival research. One feels his awe and respect for these rare documents, even describing their \u201cwonderful\u201d binding. Not only does this study make an original contribution to our knowledge, \u201cfilling a gap\u201d as he put it in Brown\u2019s engagement with the Missionary Project at the beginning of the 20th century, but it is also well-written and throughout demonstrates insightful reflection on potential biases in records and survey data as well as on the scope of the claims he makes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The judges this year were:<\/p>\n