With Irvine serving in this role, Shafer will be able to concentrate on assisting students with applications for fellowships and pre-health science positions. She will also be able to attend more national and international fellowship conferences to stay abreast of current issues and trends in the area. She will also continue to coordinate Zyzzogeton, Augsburg’s annual celebration of student research and creativity and work with graduate and off-campus summer research applicants. In collaboration with the URGO Advisory Council, she will continue to manage academic-year research and student travel opportunities.

Shafer said, “Colin is a logical and inspired choice on many levels. By building capacity for him to coordinate summer research, the College will ensure that I reserve enough energy for the full range of URGO offerings.”

Irvine boasts an active scholarly record, including publication of a book, several book chapters and numerous journal articles, along with too-many-to-list conference and invited presentations, many with intriguing titles, such as “Teaching like a Mountain:  The Aldo Leopold Papers Project” or “Hollywood’s Response to Climate Change: Starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Al Gore,” and more with conventional titles, such as “Wallace Stegner’s Novelization of the American West and Western” or “Problems with Peer Review and What These Indicate About the Status of the Workshop and How Well These Work in College Composition Courses.”

Irvine has a distinguished record of successfully mentoring groups of students in the classroom through the research process, via his Aldo Leopold project, and with “The Honors Review.”

He has successfully shepherded several URGO summer researchers who have gone on to top-tier graduate programs and won Fulbright awards. Through scholarship and practice, he has exhibited a zest, verging on zaniness, for building strong learning communities, an important goal for the URGO summer research program.

In 2010, he was awarded a Fulbright Roving Scholar award and spent the 2010-11 academic year in Norway, making him a role model for students considering national fellowship competitions.

And perhaps most notably, he won the MN Father of the Year Award, suggesting that he has solid (or at least unique) parenting skills which he can employ as needed when mentoring a summer research cohort.

Congratulations to Professor Irvine.

The post Irvine to coordinate URGO summer research program appeared first on News and Media.

The office of Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity (URGO) provides summer research grants for students interested in graduate or professional study. The program encourages undergraduate students to conduct research because it displays an understanding of current questions in a field, the ability to collaborate with others, and the persistence necessary to meet the demands of graduate study.

Students are involved in research activities 40 hours per week for nine weeks. They also participate in weekly research roundtable discussions, submit weekly progress reports to the URGO office, and are required to present their findings at Augsburg’s year-end Zyzzogeton festival.

Wednesday, July 22, 10:30-12:00

Kennedy 303

10:30 Randy Krug ’10 (Biology): A Novel Method for Stimulating Growth in Algal Systems. [Gyberg, Chemistry]

11:00 Jessica Fanaselle ’10 (English, Religion) & Taylor Norman ’10 (English): Digitizing Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac: Recreating an Undergraduate Research Experience. [Irvine, English]

11:30 Ruthann Dohner ’11 (Biology) & Therese Miller ’10 (Biology): Wound Healing in Asthma: The Role of Major Basic Protein. [Bankers-Fulbright, Biology]

Kennedy 305

10:30 Colin Stanhill ’11 (English, Film): Anton Wilson, Thomas Pynchon and the Problem of Perspective in Postmodern Fiction. [Cowgill, English]

11:00 Eric Howe ’10 (Computer Science, Mathematics): Modeling Heat-Shrinkable Films. [Belik, Mathematics]

11:30 Jim Kleason ’11 (Computer Science, Business Administration) & Melissa Robertson ’10 (Mathematics): Activity of Parietal and Prefrontal Neurons during Spatial Categorization. [Crowe, Biology]

Oren Gateway Center 100

10:30 Jessica Hilk ’11 (Health & Physical Education): Plyometrics: A study of their effects on the Augsburg Volleyball Team. [Clapp, Health & Phy. Ed]

11:00 Ruth Senum ’10 (Elementary Education): Statistical Literacy within the K-8 Curriculum. [Stevens, Education]

11:30 Nick Blixt ’10 (Biology) & Breann Woelfel ’10 (Biology): Monitoring Stream Health Using DNA Barcodes of Environmentally Sensitive Aquatic Insects: A Study of Rice Creek. [Butkowski, Biology]

Oren Gateway Center 201

10:30 Adam Williams ’09 (Psychology): The Effects of Vocabulary on Attractiveness. [Matz, Psychology]

11:00 Dustin Dorsey ’10 (Biology) & Arianna Lofrano ’11 (Biology): Microsatellite Analysis of Host-Parasite Interactions: The Case of Abutilon theophrasti and Cuscuta pentagona. [Botanga & Capman, Biology]

11: 30 Allison Nelson ’11 (Chemistry): Adventures in Green Chemistry: A Green Pathway to Benzoic Acids. [Olmsted, Chemistry]

1:00-2:30 Concurrent Afternoon Presentations

Kennedy 303

1:00 Aybike Bakan ’11 (Biology) & Jens Olsen ’10 (Biology): Effects of Major Basic Protein on Calu-3 Epithelial Monolayers: Implications for Asthma. [Bankers-Fulbright, Biology]

1:30 Anna Boyle ’10 (Political Science): Analyzing Two Minnesota Governors and the Use of Executive Power in Policymaking; Wendell Anderson in 1971 and Tim Pawlenty in 2009. [Hesser, Sociology]

2:00 Juventino Meza-Rodriguez ’11 (Peace & Justice Studies, Sociology): Augsburg College: Its Immigrant Sensibility, Jane Addams, & Civic Engagement– a History, the Present, our Future. [Pribbenow]

Kennedy 305

1:00 Sam Smith ’11 (International Relations): Synthetic Worlds, Synthetic Selves? Identity Construction in World of Warcraft. [Vela-McConnell, Sociology]

1:30 Emily Merhar ’09 (Studio Art): Contemporary Ceramic Dishware with Terra Sigillata: Influenced by Cedar Avenue. [Tom, Art]

2:00 John Singleton ’10 (Mathematics, Physics) & Ben Hoffman ’10 (Mathematics, Physics): Numerical Optimization of Organic Solar Cell Efficiencies. [Belik, Mathematics]

Oren Gateway Center 100

1:00 Nick Hudson ’12 (Physics): Image Processing and the Tools of Tomorrow. [Stottrup, Physics]

1:30 Andy Myers ’10 (Music Performance): Stories: Excerpts from the Lives of Marv Dahlgren and Elliot Fine. [Stacke, Music]

2:00 Shane Wyborny ’10 (Biology): Algae Cultivation for Biodiesel Production Using Solar Power & Artificial Light. [Feng, Chemistry]

Thursday, July 23, 11:00-12:00

Oren Gateway Center 201

11:00 MacKenzie Shiell ’10 (Psychology): The Relation Between Received Prosocial Behavior and Anxious-Depressed and Withdrawn-Depressed Affect in Kindergarteners. [Ralston, Psychology]

11:30 Betsy Norell ’10 (Music Therapy): The Effects of Music on Immune System Indicators. [Taylor, Music Therapy]

The post URGO Summer Research Oral Presentations appeared first on News and Media.

The McNair Scholars Program offers undergraduate students the unique experience of participating in graduate-level activities. One component of the program is an intensive 10-week long summer research project. Participating students spend an average of 40 hours a week exploring their topics, developing a thesis, collecting and reviewing data, and preparing a formal presentation of their findings.

The 2008 McNair Scholars are:

Maria Benaros, a music performance junior, is writing about Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino with an analysis of musical tools used to reflect the lyrics of each song in the “Flores Argentinas” cycle. Benaros will also be performing the piece as a part of her final presentation. (Faculty mentor: Merilee Klemp, Associate Professor, Music)

Peggy Cooper, a senior studying accounting and economics, has been researching the consequences that increased dependency on student loans to post-secondary schooling has on degree attainment rates in public four-year universities. (Faculty mentor: Stella Hofrenning, Associate Professor, Economics)

Robert Goodman, a sociology junior, is exploring the motivations of self-identified heterosexual men that engage in surreptitious homosexual relationships. (Faculty mentor: Shonda Craft, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota, Family Social Science)

Chaundra Kakish-Thotland, an education senior, is conducting research related to the Paideia teaching style. She expects to answer the question “Does training in Paideia seminar methodology affect teachers’ attitudes and behavior towards constructivist learning?” (Faculty mentor: Anne Kaufman, Associate Professor, Education)

Thomas Lopez, a junior majoring in math and physics, is observing and analyzing the effects that mixing odd-even carbon chain structures has on viscoelastic qualities in lipid monolayers. (Faculty mentor: Ben Stottrup, Assistant Professor, Physics)

Jessica Love, an education senior, has been studying the ways that silence is employed in domestic abuse situations between victim and abuser as well as how society, as a whole, reinforces the silence by excusing or disregarding these violent occurrences. (Faculty mentor: David Lapakko, Associate Professor, Communication Studies)

Vanessa Manning, a junior English major, is researching the specific techniques by Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen in their writings translating their theoretical ideas about being African American poets. (Faculty mentor: Mzenga Wanyama, Assistant Professor, English)

Bernell Martin, a history and American Indian studies senior, has been examining federal repatriation in the North Platte Valley and the factors that attracted movement to the Upper Midwest, including industry, railroads and sugar cultivation. (Faculty mentor: Elise Marubbio, Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies)

Krystal Mattison, a history and American Indian studies junior, is working on a comparative study of the East German and North Korean defectors and the influence they have on reunification. (Faculty mentor: Donald Gustafson, Professor, History)

Jenna Mead, a sociology senior, is developing a descriptive analysis of variation in the international portrayal of the events of Abu Ghraib committed by American Soldiers in Iraq. (Faculty mentor: Diane Pike, Professor, Sociology)

Erin Scott, a junior studying sociology and Spanish, is researching the conceptualization of the GLBT movement among a sample of openly trans-identified people. (Faculty mentor: Kathleen Hull, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, Sociology)

Zachary Sommer, psychology and sociology junior, has been analyzing the social structure, norms, and relationships within the video game “Second Life,” with the intention of comparing the virtual world to the existing frameworks of the real world. (Faculty mentor: James Vela-McConnell)

Mohammad Sweidan, an accounting and finance senior, is studying the unstable, changing real estate market to find out if it’s still more economically beneficial to own property versus to rent. (Faculty mentor: Stuart Stoller, Professor, Business-MIS)

Latisha White, a senior majoring in English and journalism, is collecting and interpreting data to help understand why educated African American women between the ages of 20 and 40, interested in relationships with African American men, have never married. (Faculty mentor: Catherine Squires, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota, Journalism)

Emily Wiles, a youth and family ministry junior, is looking at the question “Do parentally-bereaved adolescents understand the image of God and how God works in the world differently than adolescents who have not lost a parent?” (Faculty mentor: Jeremy Myers, Assistant Professor, Religion)

Article by Lara Crombie

The post McNair Scholars engage in summer research appeared first on News and Media.

URGO — the office of Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity — provides summer research grants for students interested in graduate or professional study. The program encourages undergraduate students to conduct research by requiring an understanding of current questions in a field, the ability to collaborate with others, and the persistence necessary to meet the demands of graduate study.

Students are involved in research activities 40 hours per week for nine weeks. They also participate in weekly research roundtable discussions, submit weekly progress reports to the URGO office, and are required to present their findings at Augsburg’s year-end Zyzzogeton festival.

Juniors Donnie McCarthy and Jamie Simmons will be playing with dragonfly larvae and poking around in their DNA. With biology professor Ralph Butkowski, the students will collect organisms, extract their DNA, isolate a particular gene, make copies of the gene using PCR, and then find the nucleotide sequence using a gene sequence analyzer machine. The goal of their research is to contribute to the international Barcode of Life Initiative (BOLI).

Stephanie Storlie, a senior majoring in psychology and youth and family ministry is conducting research at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development with professor Nicki Crick. Storlie will study relational aggression — the behavior featured in popular media sources like Rosalind Wiseman’s book “Queen Bees and Wannabes” and the film “Mean Girls.” Specifically, Storlie be developing a coding system for media to compare sources with the scientific research in this area.

Storlie writes, “This area of research is fairly new, and it will be very exciting to see how the many popular media sources compare to this new research that has been conducted.” She also noted that the Institute of Child Development will open a National Institute on Relation Aggression at the University’s St. Paul campus.

Junior chemistry major Shelly Tippelt is working at Anoka-based SarTec searching for ways to make algae a more economical and efficient source for biodiesel. Tippelt wrote, “I want to learn more about the research process and U.S. fuel problems and solutions.”

And Jason Potts will be helping athletes improve their 40-yard dash. The fifth-year HPE major is testing football players to see if decline (downhill) running has any effect on sprinting speed. Potts is hoping to learn if this type of running is better than running uphill or with resistance and if it might provide a better way to train in the offseason.

The 2008 researchers and their faculty mentors are:

Ashley Gruhlke — Su Doree

Daniel Volz — Sandra Olmsted

Donald McCarthy — Ralph Butkowski

Erick Turcios-Carerra — Brian Corner

Evelyn Tsen — Janet Fried

Jamie Simmons — Ralph Butkowski

Jason Potts — Anthony Clapp

Kellen Chamblee — Ronald Fedie

Matthew Harris — Brian Corner

Meghan Asleson — Yoji Shimizu (U of M)

Michelle Tippelt — Arlin Gyberg

Nathan White — robert tom

Nathaniel Johnson — Benjamin Stottrup

Robert Johnson — Arlin Gyberg

Sergio Romero-Garcia — Benjamin Stottrup

Stephanie Storlie — Nicki Crick

The post What I did on my summer vacation appeared first on News and Media.