Posted 2:55 p.m. Friday, Dec. 1, 2023
Murphy Library student worker wins the 2023 Quick Pitch Competition
By Teri Holford (she/her)
Murphy Library student worker Adeline Hendrix got the job done in three minutes. In May 2023, she had signed up to compete in the annual WiSys Quick Pitch regional competition, where students (undergraduate and graduate) present their current research projects to a jury. They have three minutes. Questions ensue. It’s nerve-wracking, but there is so much to say, all must be memorized, and you want to convince the jury that your communication skills deliver well and that the content of your project is worth winning the chance to represent UW-La Crosse at the state level later that summer. Plus a $300 cash prize to boot. All participating students that day were well prepared, poised and convincing. The subjects covered were diverse, from hard science to soft science to humanities. The jury, made up of Provost Betsy Morgan, Chancellor Joe Gow, and Associate Vice Chancellor Sandra Grunwald, admitted the decision was tough. After deliberations, the winner was announced: Adeline Hendrix for her research project, “Diversity in Children’s Literature.”
Hendrix received a $1,000 Undergraduate Research & Creativity Grant earlier in the year to fund her part of a larger, grant-funded research project currently underway in the Murphy Library Alice Hagar Curriculum Center consisting of a diversity analysis of all the picture books, which are being analyzed and coded according to categories that Hendrix and her research mentor, Education Liaison & Special Collections Librarian Teri Holford, had determined. Their work is broadly inspired by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hendrix participated in one chunk of the book analysis in its earlier phase, but her own grant-funded project is to create a web-based, intuitive and user-friendly search tool that would allow users to customize a search for diversity in picture books. At the time of this writing, both projects are concluding data collection and inching toward the stage of data analysis and beta testing. Hendrix, an archeology major and history major with a topical emphasis in public and policy, also works at Murphy Library’s Special Collections and Area Research Center.
Learn more about Hendrix’s project and the other UWL students who participated in the Quick Pitch competition on the WiSys website.