Each year MSERA sponsors the Herbert M. Handley Outstanding Dissertation/Thesis Award. Any current member of MSERA, who has completed a dissertation or thesis during or after the summer, 2006, which was submitted in partial fulfillment of degree requirements at a college or university within the member states of MSERA, may submit a summary for this award. The award winner receives a plaque and a $250 cash award. The dissertation director is also recognized.
To be eligible for this award, the author must use the on-line submission process to submit an abstract of no more than 300 words as outlined in the Call for Papers. In addition, eight (8) copies of the summary of the dissertation/thesis must be sent to the Program Chair. The on-line abstract submission and paper copies must be received by July 11, 2008.
The dissertation/thesis summary submission may not exceed 25 double-spaced, typewritten pages, including narrative, tables and bibliography. Author name and institutional affiliation should be provided on a cover sheet separate from the eight copies to be reviewed. The title of the dissertation/thesis summary should appear on both the cover sheet and the eight copies.
Review for the award is a two-step process. First, the Program Committee will review abstracts of the submitted thesis/dissertation summaries to determine if they will be accepted for presentation at the Annual Meeting. Second, the Distinguished Awards Committee will review the thesis/dissertation summaries accepted by the Program Committee, to identify the most outstanding among those submitted. The chair of the committee will ensure that each submitted summary receives a minimum of three (3) blind reviews by members of the Distinguished Awards Committee. The five (5) summaries receiving the highest composite reviews (or all summaries if fewer than five entries are submitted) will then be reviewed by members of the Distinguished Awards Committee based on all possible pairwise comparisons. The dissertation/thesis summary judged to be most outstanding at the conclusion of the two-stage process will be declared winner of the competition. The chair of the Distinguished Awards Committee will announce the award winner at the MSERA annual meeting. The abstract from the winning disseration will be published, on the MSERA web site, in the MSERA Educational Researcher, or both.
Abstracts must be submitted at the web site (go to Call for Papers).
In addition, eight (8) copies of the complete dissertation/thesis summary must be sent to:
Dana Thames, MSERA Awards Chair
University of Southern Mississippi
118 College Drive, #5057
Hattiesburg, MS 39401-0001
(601) 266-6275 (voice)
(601) 266-4548 (fax)