Distinguished Dissertation Award

The purpose of the award is to recognize a doctoral student for excellence in the creation of knowledge.

Candidates for the Alumni Association Distinguished Dissertation Award may be nominated by any member of the graduate faculty at Ball State University.

The award recipient is recognized during Graduate Student Recognition Week and presented a plaque and monetary gift.

Read the guidelines for the Distinguished Dissertation Award.

Award Recipients

2013
Nathan C. Myers, Department of English
" 'Yeats': Fashioning Credibility, Canonicity, and Ethnic Identity through Transnational Appropriation"
Chairperson: Dr. Deborah Mix

2012
Amanda, Latz, Department of Educational Studies
"Understanding the Educational Lives of Community College Students through Photovoice"
Chairperson: Dr. Thalia Mulvihill

2011
Jenelle N. Boo
Department of Counseling Psychology
"The Relationship Between Adult Attachment and Depression as Mediated by Social Support, Self-Esteem, and Optimism"
Dr. Kristin Perrone McGovern

2010
Nicholas D. Luden
Department of Physical Education
"Physiological Adaptations to Taper in Competitive Distance Runners"
Chairperson: Dr. Scott Trappe

2009 
Philip W. Rudd    
Department of English
“Sheng: The Mixed Language of Nairobi”
Chairperson: Dr. Carolyn MacKay

2008 
Ulrika Raue   
Department of Physical Education
"Skeletal Muscle Gene Expression with Age"
Chairperson: Dr. Scott Trappe

2007 
Alfred Johnson   
Department of English
"Network: Social Networks, Disruptive Agency, and Innovation in Howells, Fitzgerald,  Heller, Pynchon, and Gibson"
Chairperson: Dr. Kecia McBride

2006 
Carmen D. Siering   
Department of English
“Rhetorical Vision: Resistance, Fantasy, and the Work of Texts in Creating and Sustaining Subculture”
Chairperson: Dr. Kristie Fleckenstein

2005 
Larra R. Petersen       
Department of Counseling & Guidance Services
“A Model of Psychosocial Adjustment to Cancer:  Additional Contributions of Agency, Communion, Unmitigated Agency, and Unmitigated Communion.” 
Chairperson:Dr. Donald Nicholas

2004 
Luz Mary Rincon                   
Department of English
“Middle-Class Spanish of the City of Bucaramanga, Columbia”
Chairperson: Dr. Carolyn MacKay

2003     
Carolyn McCue Goffman             
Department of English
“More than the Conversion of Souls: Rhetoric and Ideology at the American College for Girls in Istanbul, 1871-1923.”
Chairperson: Dr. Linda Hanson

2002     
Kurt Bullock                     
Department of English
“Narrative Space and Time:  The Rhetoric of Disruption in  the Short-Story Form.”
Chairperson: Dr. Patti White

2001 
Stefania Aegisdottir         
Department of Counseling Psychology
 "Icelanders' and Americans' Expectations About Counseling:  Do Expectations Vary | By Nationality, Sex, and Holland's Typology?"
Chairperson: Dr. Lawrence H. Gerstein

2000 
Alan Maugherman     
Department of Counseling Psychology
"The Effects of Distraction and Dysphoria on Social Problem-Solving Ability"
Chairperson: Dr. Paul Spengler

1999 
Cynthia L. Johanek    
Department of English
"A Contextualist Research Paradigm for Rhetoric and Composition"
Chairperson: Dr. Paul Ranieri

1998 
Ollie D. Powers  
School of Music
"Interactions Between Composers and Technology in the First Decades of Electronic Music, 1948-1968"
Chairpersons: Dr. Jody Nagel and Dr. David Sills

1997   
Wendy Y. Robinson    
Department of Educational Leadership
"The Relationship Between the Social Environment of an Urban School District and Its Support of Innovation and Change"
Chairperson: Dr. Theodore Kowalski

1996   
Not Awarded

1995 
Charles P. Conrad  
School of Music
"Fred Jewell (1875-1936):  His Life as Composer of Circus and Band Music, Bandmaster, and Publisher"
Chairperson: Dr. Linda L. Pohly

1994 
C. Floyd Richmond     
School of Music
"Tools, Guidelines, and Strategies for the Development of Computer-Assisted-Instruction Lessons by Non-Programming Music Teachers" 
Chairperson: Dr. H. Eugene Karjala 

1993 
Marsha A. Groff    
Department of English
"Personality Types, Writing Strategies and College Basic Writers:  Four Case Studies"
Chairperson: Dr. Barbara T. Weaver

1992 
Jeffrey J. Widrick    
School of Physical Education
"Carbohydrate Feedings and Exercise Performance:  Influence of Muscle Glycogen Availability"
 Chairperson: David L. Costill

1991 
Susan B. Yanos  
Department of English
"A Rhetorical Analysis of the Current Challenge to the Evolutionary Paradigm"
Chairperson: Forrest Houlette

1990 
Frederick A. Woodress     
Adult & Community Education
"The Impact of the Media on the Elderly (Over 60) Population in America's Middletown"
Chairperson: Dr. Peter J. Murk

1989 
Geoffrey McGillen   
School of Music
"The Teaching and Artistic Legacy of Olga Samaroff Stokowski"
Chairperson: Dr. Philip Albright

1988  
Linda L. Elphick   Department of English
"A World Without Real Deliverances:" Liberal Humanism in the Novels of Malcolm Bradbury" 
Chairperson: Dr. James K. MacDougall

1987 
Barbara A. Brecker       
Department of Counseling Psychology
"How Battered Women Cope:  Cognitive Appraisal, Coping Resources, and Coping Strategies"
Chairperson: Dr. Charles R. Barke

1986 
Randall L. Calhoun  
Department of English 
"William Shenstone's Aesthetic Theory and Poetry"
Chairperson: Dr. Richard Brown

1985     
Frederick L. Malouf  
School of Music
"A System for Interactive Music Composition Through Computer Graphics"
Chairperson: Dr. Cleve L. Scott

1984 Barbara T. Weaver  
Department of English 
"The Role of Literature in Teaching Freshman Composition"
Chairperson: Dr. Joseph F. Trimmer