Creating Knowledge, volume 6, 2013

It is my great pleasure to introduce the sixth volume of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences’ “Creating Knowledge,” our undergraduate student scholarship and research journal. First published in 2008, the journal is the outcome of an initiative to enhance and enrich the academic quality of the student experience within the college. Through this publication, the college seeks to encourage students to become actively engaged in creating scholarship and research and gives them a venue for the publication of their essays. This sixth volume is, however, unlike the previous ones in one major respect: the papers in this volume reflect a decision to alter the very method by which papers were selected for inclusion and a decision about the best way to more fully represent the considerable breadth of subject matter that reflect the many different departments and programs that we have in the college of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. Each major undergraduate department and program was challenged to develop a system whereby the single best scholarly essay written by a student during the academic year would be decided by faculty within that academic unit and awarded a publication slot in the current annual issue. This necessitated the cooperation and hard work of many within the undergraduate units in our college. The resulting collection of papers representing the efforts of our best students and the collaboration of faculty reviewers in 20 of our programs is certainly ample testimony to not only the creativity, hard work, and sophistication of our undergraduate scholars, but of the dedication of our programs to the quality of the educational experiences and opportunities offered by them to students. It is through the continuing annual publication of this undergraduate student journal that we aim to underscore that leadership within their disciplines requires students to not only be familiar with the knowledge base of the discipline, but to have the experience of being actively engaged in sustaining an intellectual community. Students must understand how their creative work and the work of others also depends on its dissemination and on the sharing of that knowledge within a community of scholars. I want to congratulate, first and foremost, the many student scholars whose work is featured in this sixth volume of the journal. They truly represent the best of the best. I also want to thank the faculty who served to make this publication possible—those who served on the editorial committees in each department and program who had the difficult task of selecting the best submissions their respective programs could make for this edition of the journal. I want to particularly thank Warren Schultz, Ph.D., associate dean for undergraduate studies, who spearheaded this year’s efforts and coordinated the implementation of the new paper selection process —no small undertaking. To the students who are featured in this edition, it is my fondest hope that this will lead you to make similar contributions beyond the department and program, the college and DePaul University. To one and all, I extend my most sincere congratulations and gratitude. Chuck Suchar Deanhttps://via.library.depaul.edu/ckgallery/1005/thumbnail.jp