The Triangle

Issue date: 4/15/05 Section: News

Media Credit: David Pondelick

The College of Arts and Sciences held 2005 CoAS Research Day, which showcased graduates and undergraduates student research, April 13 in Behrakis Grand Hall. Students created posters outlining research projects they had completed over the past year. This year, over 70 different posters were on display presenting research in the fields of the physical sciences, biological sciences, humanities, and social and behavioral sciences.

In the past, CoAS Research Day has felt much pressure to increase research presentations in the humanities. While the majority of presentations this year were still in the field of natural sciences, humanities, such as English and psychology, were not hard to find.

"I think this is the first time we've seen history," said Dean of the College of Arts and Science Donna Murasko. "We're having more English than we've had in the past. It is truly exciting to see that people recognize that scholarly activity and research spans every discipline."

While the posters were on display, judges from the CoAS, headed by Professor of Physics Leonard Finegold, examined projects and reviewed posters as well as listened to the students present their respective topics. Posters were judged based on the scholarly context of the work, the presentation of the topic, the poster itself and the contribution of the student presenter to the topic presented on the poster. Ideally, judges hoped for posters and presentations that would take the topic of the poster and present it in the most comprehensible fashion possible, while keeping the message so clear and concise that even an individual outside the discipline could follow along.

Both graduates and undergraduates winners were announced and honorable mentions were awarded along with first, second and third place awards,

There was also an emphasis on the social sciences at this year's CoAS Research Day from the traditional natural science research. In undergraduate category, Casey Swegman and Chelsea Powlus, both psychology majors, took first place for their presentation entitled "Morning Lark vs. Night Owl: Which College Students have better Sleep Quality?" and Melinda Wolbransky, another psychology major, received second place for their project entitled, "The Level of Service Inventory-Revised and Offender Recidivism: Predictive Validity in a U.S. Urban Cohort." Interestingly enough, third place was awarded to John Pluta, yet another psychology major, presented "Systematic Analysis of Mythology in Kill Bill." Wolbransky, who earned second place also received an honorable mention for a different presentation, along with Karol Osipowicz and Michael Shrunk, both psychology majors.

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