The Raymond F. Damato Library provides the collections and services to support student research and creative projects at CT State Manchester. The award recognizes student excellence in research as well as the skillful use of the Library’s collections and services. 

Up to two (2) winning papers/projects will be awarded $300 at the Manchester campus Awards Ceremony held at the conclusion of the spring semester. Award recipients permit the Raymond F. Damato Library to include their works on its website.  

We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the MCC Foundation and its donors for funding the Library research award.

Eligibility Requirements:

To be considered for the award, the following guidelines must be adhered to:

• Students must be enrolled in CT State Manchester courses during the 2024 calendar year.
• The paper or project must be the student’s own work and submitted for credit during the 2024 calendar year. 
• All sources must be cited using a standard citation format (MLA, APA, etc.).  
• Applicants must include a paragraph that summarizes their use of Library collections or services and any research strategies employed.

Submission Requirements:

• Your paper or project 
• Your name, email address and phone number
• Title of the work
• Manchester campus course name
• Name of your professor
• Applicants must include a reflective paragraph that summarizes their use of Library collections or services and any research strategies employed.

Submissions will be evaluated by a committee of Manchester campus faculty and librarians.
 

Evaluation Criteria

• Final paper or project uses a broad array of information sources, including books, media, articles, or data sets.  
• Information sources are successfully integrated as evidence and reflect a range of viewpoints appropriate to the subject matter. 
• Reflective paragraph demonstrates awareness of the collections and services of the Raymond F. Damato Library.
• All written work submitted with the application should be clear, coherent, and free of spelling or grammatical errors.

Announcing the 2024 Winner

The award committee has chosen Skyler Rapacioli for the paper entitled Richard III: The Monstrous Results of Propaganda. In the reflective paragraph that accompanied the application, Skyler wrote:

"The use of the Raymond F. Damato Library database collection was necessary for my success in writing this essay. A piece that not only provided the basis for my arguments but additionally contained thought-provoking commentary on Richard III was one that I found through EBSCOhost Academic Search Complete - “Richard’s Body Politic: Disability and Ability in Shakespeare’s Histories" by Sarah Bischoff. If it weren't for the library's grand repertoire of databases, my essay would be significantly lacking in foundation and quality analysis."

Announcing the 2023 Winners

The research award selection committee has selected two winners for the 2023 application cycle. Allison Edwards (ENG 1020) for the paper entitled We Have Created a Monster, and Natalie Snyder (ENG 1010) for the paper entitled The Problem with the Dieting Culture. Congratulations to this year's award recipients! 

Announcing the 2022 Winners

The research award committee has selected two winners this cycle, Geeta Khade (ENG 200) for the paper entitled Unconscious Bias: Science Behind and Influence on Human Mind, and Ashley Odell (COM 173) for the paper, The challenges of the Challenger speech.

In the reflective paragraph that accompanied Ashley's application, she wrote:

"My paper about Ronald Reagan's "Challenger" speech could not have been written without MCC's Raymond F. Damato Library. I accessed the text of the speech itself through MasterFILE, one of the library's digital databases. For one of my foundational sources, Mary E. Stuckey's book "Slipping the Surly Bonds: Reagan's Challenger Address," I was able to access the full text through the EBSCOhost Academic eBook Collection instead of having to buy it or request a hard copy through interlibrary loan. By browsing relevant articles available in MCC's journal databases like JSTOR and EBSCOhost and examining their own sources, I was led to two that I wound up using."

Announcing the 2021-22 Winner

The research award committee has selected Lucy Lundgren as the winner for her paper Small Towns v. First Amendment. The paper was written for Prof. Sean Gillane's POL 111 course. Regarding the research undertaken for the paper, she writes:

This research paper allowed me to hone my skills like none before. The MCC Library was a big help in completing it. I was able to use the Westlaw Campus Research program to find powerful quotations from Supreme Court opinions and provide pinpoint citations to the relevant portions of each one. I was even able to include a quotation from a newspaper article from 1940 using the Historical Hartford Courant program.