News and Information
GVSU Nominates Two Master's Theses for Award Competition
November 02, 2015
The Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) opened its annual Distinguished Thesis Competition, allowing schools to nominate up to two master's theses in this year's discipline categories: Biological/Life Sciences and the Humanities. The theses representing GVSU are selected by a committee of faculty members from multiple disciplines and approved by the Dean of Graduate Studies.
In the Biological/Life Sciences category, Jared J. Homola's thesis Disease ecology of a microsporidian parasite and its effects on mottled sculpin was selected to represent GVSU. Jared successfully completed his thesis and graduated with a Master of Science in Biology at the conclusion of the Spring/Summer 2013 semester.
Jared's faculty advisor, Dr. Carl Ruetz of the Annis Water Resources Institute, stated that “Jared exemplified the characteristics of a scholar while a graduate student at GVSU. Jared gave eight scientific presentations on his research at national and regional conferences, including a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the American Fisheries Society in St. Paul, Minnesota. More impressively, Jared published a manuscript (Homola et al. 2015) summarizing the main findings of his thesis research in Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Science, which is arguably the premier journal of fisheries science."
Jared is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Ecology and Environmental Sciences at University of Maine.
In the Humanities category, Anna M. Worm's thesis "God Made Me Thisaway": Mary Wilkins Freeman, Flannery O’Connor, and Religiosity as Challenge to Heteronormativity has been selected to represent GVSU. Anna successfully defended her thesis on March 21, 2014 and graduated with a Master of Arts in English at the conclusion of the Winter 2014 semester.
Anna's thesis committee chair, Dr. Avis Hewitt, stated "Anna’s work is powerful in several ways. First, her choice of texts to juxtapose and the conceptions with which she framed her reading of them speaks to the powerfully bold and deeply creative way she thinks. She courageously chose to combine what might be considered a culturally conservative conventional frame, religiosity, with a dramatically contemporary social issue, heteronormativity."
Anna is currently enrolled in the Rhetoric and Composition doctoral program at Florida State University.
The GVSU faculty who served on the MAGS selection committee were:
- Dr. Bryan Deyo, Department of English
- Dr. Danielle Leek, School of Communications
- Dr. Ali Locher, Department of Biology
- Dr. James McNair, Department of Biology
- Dr. Jennifer Moore, Department of Biology
- Dr. Osman Patel, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology
Dr. Jeffrey Potteiger, Dean of Graduate Studies, and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies Dr. John Stevenson also served on the review committee and approved the final thesis selections.