Beloit College Magazine
Beloit College Magazine
Spring 2001 Contents
Departments
Features
- Do You Do What You Say You Do?
- Renewed Spirit Marks Inauguration Day
- On the Trail of Roy Chapman Andrews
- A Hands-on Approach to History
- Chalk One Up for Student-Faculty Research
- The Writing is On the Wall
- A Touch of Gold
- A Beloit and the Peace Corps: Adventures in Service
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It’s no accident that the Chronicle of Higher Education and other national publications have featured Beloit and its students as among the select few who are deeply engaged in their education. Chalk it up to—in part—Beloit’s tradition of close student-faculty interaction and research collaboration.
Three summer and several academic-year programs comprise the range of Beloit’s collaborative learning opportunities. Informally, various special projects pair students with faculty members. The results of these latter efforts—which cross all disciplines—appear in the annual springtime Student Symposium, a celebration of professional-quality research.
The Beloit College-Howard Hughes Medical Institute Young Scholars Project, the Sanger
Summer Research Fellows Program, the Schweppe Foundation of Chicago, the McNair Scholars
program, and the Minority Scholars and Academic Career Program find ways and places for
dedicated students to work closely with faculty and experts.
“The programs give students opportunities to work both independently and collaboratively,” says Marc Roy, associate professor of biology and associate dean of the College. “They learn how to be real scholars in their area. It’s a treat to watch them mature, to see what they’ve learned and how their confidence grows.”
Joy of Discovery
The Hughes program, now in its 10th year, reaches students early—the summer before their first year at Beloit. They spend six weeks conducting research with faculty, learning what it means “to do science,” instead of just studying it.
Sometimes, says Prof. Roy, a student will not remain a science major, but will move to another discipline and renew research there. “It gives students a chance to figure out what inquiry means: how to ask questions, how to answer questions. It is a higher level of thinking.”
Nancy Nguyen’04 and Lyna Muñoz-Morris’04, for instance, worked with Nancy Krusko, associate professor of anthropology, to research ways in which people develop resistance to antibiotics through overmedication. “Various medical groups are becoming aware of over-prescribing,” Ms. Nguyen says of her student research experience. “It was very interesting.”
Building on the Hughes Program, the Sanger Summer Research Fellows Program encourages first-year, sophomore, and junior students to conduct research in their academic fields; the subjects are wonderfully varied.
Nikki Peters’03 was part of the Hughes program two years ago and took advantage of the Sanger Program last year. Working with Paul Whitaker, a visiting professor of biology, she designed an experiment to determine how the predations of wasps counteract a more insidious pest. “It was frustrating at first,” she says. “I never knew how to do experiments. But once we got into it, it was fun.”
For the Sanger project, she assembled a collection of musical works inspired by Greek and Roman myths and edited segments for a classics department Web site. “It taught me that I was meant to be a biologist,” she adds, “But it’s a perfect liberal arts education: you find your path.”
Felicia Peck’01, working with Linda Sturtz, assistant professor of history, chose to study “Gender and Manumissions in 18th-Century Jamaica.” Alex Brelsfoard’01, working with Shin Yong, adjunct assistant professor of modern languages and literatures, dealt with the development of Chinese language software; Luisa Vitor’00 collaborated with Constantine Hadavas, assistant professor of classics, producing “Putting Music into Words.”
The Sanger Fellows program, funded by College Trustee Jim Sanger and his wife, Marge, is in its third year. “We select 10 students each year,” says Prof. Roy. “The students meet in a weekly seminar, and although they’re working in different disciplines and different areas of the College, they get to know each other and discover how other students approach research questions—the similarities and the differences involved.”
Prof. Roy says the program creates good intellectual cross-pollination among students and among faculty “... because it gives us a chance to see what our colleagues are doing, and that’s interesting too.”
Branching Out
Last summer, a new program opened opportunities for six Beloit students at Northwestern and Rush Universities in Chicago. It was the first time the Schweppe Foundation funded undergraduate internships for students interested in biology and biochemistry; previously, funding was reserved for post-graduates.
Of the Beloit undergraduates selected, one is a philosophy major. Tamir Ardon’02 had been considering a medical career, but because he loves sciences and philosophy, he was also interested in biomedical research or an associated subject. At Rush, he worked with Prof. Larry L. Thomas in the department of immunology/microbiology and produced a paper titled “Eosinophil Activation by Immobilized Lactoferrin.” He later presented his research at the Pew Midstates Science and Mathematics Consortium Undergraduate Symposium in November.
When the Schweppe Scholars returned to campus, Prof. Roy says, “Several commented that they had a much better understanding of how scientific research is conducted, and a better appreciation of the large amounts of work summarized in a few sentences in texts. Like all the students in this program, they saw an opportunity, grabbed it, and ran.”
Reaching High
Other programs for scholars offer important opportunities for collaborative learning. The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program is open to first-generation college students and low-income students, or to students from groups that are underrepresented in graduate education. It’s designed to help undergradutes or college graduates make the transition to graduate school.
Three Beloit seniors—Mike Suarez, who examined non-human primate cognitive abilities; Jennifer Dillon, who researched issues of teen motherhood in an African-American community; and Jacqueline Scott, who investigated the marginilization of Latina lesbians—presented their findings at the MeNair 2001 leadership conference, held at the University of Maryland.
Other Beloit students have submitted proposals for research on a variety of topics, including the impact of sex education on high school students; the social and economic implications of building a casino in the Beloit community; and the integration of a South African curriculum in an American elementary school system. Research will begin this summer, and the students will make presentations at the end of June.
Building A Future
Since 1988, the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) has operated the Minority Scholars and Academic Careers Program. It also encourages eligible students on ACM campuses to consider academic careers, by matching students with faculty mentors for summer research projects. Beloit students have used the program to support inquiry in a variety of disciplines.
“A lot of schools have summer research programs,” says Prof. Roy. “There is a preponderance of programs in the natural sciences and social sciences, but not very many with opportunities for students in all disciplines.
“Our philosophy is—if you’re curious and hard-working—you can ask questions and, with guidance, have terrific research experiences before graduating from Beloit College.”
—By Iris Poliski
Faculty email:
Marc Roy - Associate Professor of Biology and Associate Dean of Beloit College
Sylvia Lopez - Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures
Nancy Krusko - Associate Professor of Anthropology
Linda Sturtz - Assistant Professor of History
Shin Yong - Adjunct Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures
Constantine Hadavas - Assistant Professor of Classics