UMD Libraries announce recipients of the 2025 Library Awards for Undergraduate Research and the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility Award
The University of Maryland Libraries are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 Library Awards for Undergraduate Research. This year’s IDEA Award recipient is Sylvia Cotten, class of 2025, majoring in History. The three Undergraduate Research prizes have been awarded to Taylor Mason, class of 2025, majoring in History; Holland Schmitz, class of 2025, majoring in History; and Matthew Zinno class of 2027, majoring in Government and Politics.
The Library Awards for Undergraduate Research and IDEA Award competition is open to all currently enrolled undergraduates. Each year, awards of $1,000 are issued to undergraduates whose work best demonstrates the value of using library services and information resources in research projects. The IDEA award seeks to recognize and empower students to explore diversity issues, educate themselves, and inspire others to advance social justice by embracing IDEA values in their research.
Sylvia Cotten: 2025 Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Library Award Winner
Cotten's award-winning research paper is entitled, "The White Man's Way": Navigating Race and Memory in Federal Indian Boarding Schools."
Cotten's submission is a research paper written for the History Honors Thesis program at the University of Maryland. Her submission explores what she calls "Forced Indigenous Labor Schools" (FILS). She argues that these methods of cultural dispersion (and the "civilizing mission" as a whole) are rooted in values of whiteness, which include English literacy, Christianity, nationalism, racism, and "individualization" (read: hard work). She categorizes numerous "memory relationships," which are the ways that the United States government, Indigenous tribes, FILS students, and their families think of one another, and indicate changes and continuities about these perceptions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She used newspapers from the Carlisle Industrial Training School and the Genoa Indian School to collect this information. She concludes that further reconciliation efforts between the United States government and the Indigenous tribes and their affected family members is necessary.
Dr. Colleen Woods, who supported Cotten’s application, writes "It was a joy to work with Sylvia throughout the year and her thesis was a deeply researched and original piece of scholarship. Her thesis contributes to the re-thinking and reckoning that the Federal Government (as well as Native nations and non-profits) are engaged in regarding the history of Indian Boarding Schools. Her topic is so timely—both the U.S. and Canada are currently conducting investigations into the history of Indian Boarding Schools—I have encouraged Sylvia to publish a portion of her thesis. In short, I think her thesis is a model of undergraduate research and deserving of recognition."
Taylor Mason: Winner of the 2025 Library Award for Undergraduate Research
Mason's award-winning paper is entitled, "F is for Feminism: Understanding 1970s Social Conflict through Sesame Street."
Written as the research paper for the History Department's Capstone Research Seminar, Mason seeks to view the education television show Sesame Street through the lens of American civil discourse. She argues that Sesame Street was more than a show with joyful characters, catchy music, and a vampire teaching numbers: it was a two-way mirror into the consciousness of American culture. Debuting in 1969, the producers, psychologists, and educators of Sesame Street created an empathetic, educational, and engaging world to develop literacy, mathematics, and socioemotional skills in preschool-aged children. Although Sesame Street has been analyzed extensively for its learning outcomes and legacy in popular memory, historians have neglected to look at the discourse surrounding the program. Preserved in the University of Maryland’s Special Collections Archives, tens of thousands of children and adults wrote letters to Sesame Street and explored a variety of topics. Two topics emerged as the most pressing: nutrition/breastfeeding and gender representation. The combination of asserting an identity and voicing an opinion in the same letter serves as meaningful examples for how Americans engage in civil discourse to change the world around them.
Dr. Katarina Keane, who supervised Mason's research, writes "what made the essay so good was that it was grounded in extensive research and had a carefully constructed argument. She applied a good deal of creative thinking in how to approach the topic and explain its relevance" She continues, "Mason offered a sophisticated historiographical contribution. In rejecting a simplistic narrative of cultural determinism, Taylor uncovered a more varied dynamic between American content creators and audiences." Moreover, she points out, "Without extensive use of UMD’s library resources, Taylor would have been unable to complete her project. The archival records of the Children’s Television Workshop (Sesame Street’s parent company) are held in UMD’s Special Collections in Hornbake. In the hundreds of pages of hand-written and typed missives, she found Americans debating issues about gender roles, nutrition, community, and racial equality, among other topics. She then supplemented these sources with editorials and letters to newspapers around the country and with other archival materials held at Hornbake."
Holland Schmitz: Winner of the 2025 Library Award for Undergraduate Research
Schmitz's award-winning paper is entitled, "Lesbian Newsletters, Pulps, and Manuals: A Primary Source Analysis."
Written for the second semester course in the first year of the honors history program HIST396:Honors Colloquium II, Holland dug deep into the library’s LGBTQIA+ databases and resources and, in particular, the Archives Unbound “Selected Gay and Lesbian Periodicals and Newsletters” collection. This research paper studies lesbian publications in the mid 1900s. The paper examines two lesbian newsletters: The Ladder and Vice Versa, which were published in the 1940s and 50s; and two lesbian pulp novels: We Walk Alone by Ann Aldrich and The Price of Salt by Claire Morgan, which were both originally published in the 1950s. By examining these texts, Schmitz demonstrates that lesbian authors created an image of humor, bravery, and care for the local community through the work they published. The newsletters were widely distributed thanks to discreet mailing options, and the lesbian pulp novels were sold in nearly every drug store and shop where someone could walk up to the counter and bravely purchase a novel with a naked woman on the front. Due to the popularity of these texts, the image of themselves that the lesbian authors wished to present did succeed in influencing many people that lesbians are worthy of love and protection, and are strong activists and allies for issues that affect queer identities. This research paper set out to change the way lesbian history was viewed by UMD peers, for the better.
Dr. Colleen Woods, who supervised Schmitz's research, writes "One of the aspects of Holland’s research that I found most impressive was her deep reading of the kinds of pieces lesbians chose to publish in their newsletters. Safety of individuals and the community was a prominent theme. Many women, as Holland discovered, published under pseudonyms to not only protect themselves but their publication and readers as well. This was true of authors of lesbian pulp novels as well—including perhaps the most well-known lesbian author, Patricia Highsmith, who published her landmark novel, The Price of Salt, using the name Claire Morgan. As Holland details, Highsmith chose to publish as Claire Morgan in order to avoid being pigeonholed as a “lesbian author.” Holland also demonstrates how the Daughters of Bilitis even informed readers of The Ladder that they had contacted an attorney to ensure that as a “legally chartered non-profit organization” readers could enjoy the publication without fearing they were breaking the law. As Holland writes, lesbian publications were devoted to conveying the message to their readers that “their existence as a homosexual human was not a crime.” Holland’s research powerfully illustrates how mid-century lesbians were attuned to how lesbians were characterized in the media. More importantly, these “funny, fierce, protective, and powerful” women were invested in authoring and producing their own forms of media."
Matthew Zinno: Winner of the 2025 Library Award for Undergraduate Research
Zinno's award-winning paper is entitled, "Executive Orders Under Judicial Scrutiny: The Role of Partisanship in Judicial Outcomes."
Written for the Government and Politics honors thesis, Zinno argues that presidential success defending executive orders is not only influenced by the legal merits, but also by the political context, including judge partisanship and presidential approval. He constructs an original dataset of all litigation in federal courts involving executive orders enacted since 1945, then presents several key findings. First, the president’s ability to successfully defend their executive orders varies considerably, while few executive orders are ruled wholly unconstitutional, courts routinely limit their scope and executability. Second, a statistically significant relationship is demonstrated between partisan judges (i.e., those appointed by presidents of the same party as the executive order author) and rulings in favor of the executive. Last, a statistically significant relationship exists between judges’ ruling on executive orders and whether the case was adjudicated during, versus after, the issuing president’s tenure. These results lend empirical evidence to the claim that judges, like other political figures, are motivated by partisan and ideological considerations. This research underscores the importance of understanding partisan factors that affect judicial decision-making on executive orders as they become an increasingly common tool for presidential policymaking.
Dr. Patrick Wohlfarth, who supported Zinno's application, writes "Zinno completed a substantial amount of original research, which included reading and coding hundreds of federal court decisions and opinions. The scope of this data collection effort resembled that of a graduate student in GVPT’s doctoral program. In my experience, Matthew’s knack for collecting and analyzing data is uncommon among undergraduate students. In sum, Matthew’s thesis research demonstrated excellent data and writing skills and a distinct intellectual curiosity about the study of American politics. Zinno's project stands to significantly contribute to scholarly knowledge of the constraining capacity of courts on presidential policymaking in the U. S. Constitution’s separation of powers. The project is especially timely in American politics today, given the extensive use of executive orders as a unilateral policy making tool by modern presidents."
Members of the 2024 Awards Jury were Patricia Kosco Cossard, Chair, University Libraries; Eric Lindquist, History, American Studies, Classics, and Religion Librarian; Celina McDonald, Government Information & Criminology Libraria; Jordan Sly, Head of Humanities and Social Science Librarians, Anthropology, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Digital Humanities, and SLLC Librarian for German, Italian and French Studies, University Libraries; and Celina McDonald, Government Documents & Criminology Librarian. These awards were funded by the generosity of the University of Maryland Libraries.