Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP)

Assisting faculty and staff to engage in research and scholarly & creative endeavors

Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) / Archives for Current Sponsored Research / Humanities

St. Mary’s College Professor to Teach in Amsterdam via Prestigious Fulbright Grant

A St. Mary’s College of Maryland professor has received a Fulbright Scholar grant for research and teaching abroad.

Jennifer Cognard-Black, professor of English and current chair of the English department, has been selected for a Fulbright grant for the spring semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. This award is for a “Senior Professorship in American Culture.” She will be teaching a special topics seminar for master’s degree students at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) in Literary Food Studies, titled “Just Food: American Food Writing and Social Justice,” as well as taking over part of a core course on literary practice and holding a workshop for PhD students that instructs them on ways to integrate teaching with research.  She also intends to conduct a research project in which she will ultimately produce an anthology titled “Recipes for Social Justice: Transatlantic Essays on Ethical Eating.”

Cognard-Black is familiar with the Fulbright grant. She joins SMCM faculty Robin Bates, Bruce Wilson, and Charles Musgrove as one of a select few SMCM professors to receive two Fulbright awards. The first took her to Slovenia in 2012, working with students that she still has ongoing relationships with today. “I am honored to have a chance once again to be an educator-ambassador on behalf of the United States and of our college,” Cognard-Black said. “This Fulbright award is an incredible opportunity to share American literature and pedagogy with students and colleagues in another country, but it’s also an opportunity for me to expand my own thinking on food justice issues and concerns in a global context.” Cognard-Black hopes to build on the work she began in Slovenia, by continuing to foster connections between St. Mary’s College and the global community. Over the course of the 2020 semester, she plans to find meaningful and lasting ways to bring the SMCM and UvA communities together.

“Yet publication will not be the sole means of sharing this work,” she explains. For instance, Cognard-Black plans to host a student panel on Food, Power, and Culture at the yearly conference hosted by PhD students at UvA, an event that draws graduate students from around the globe. She also hopes to give her students at UvA the chance to share their work in a broader sense, and to have them collaborate with students here in the U.S. “For one of the key reasons to analyze food and foodways is to enrich others’ understanding of worldwide food disparities, economies, and cultural identities,” Cognard-Black explains, “and sharing essays on ethical eating practices may help student participants both recognize and resist the barriers between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ thereby promoting culinary empathy across borders.”

St. Mary’s College of Maryland is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education through 2024-2025. St. Mary’s College, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 1,600 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary’s River in Southern Maryland.

Written by St. Mary’s College student Zoe Smedley ’19

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Barry Muchnick Presented on Innovative Environmental Studies Curriculum at Association of American Colleges & Universities Conference

Dr. Muchnick (left) with colleagues at the 2019 AAC&U conference

Barry Ross Muchnick, assistant professor of environmental studies, recently presented an invited talk at the annual conference of the Association of American Colleges & Universities in Atlanta, Georgia. His presentation highlighted the numerous and innovative ways civic learning is embedded within the environmental studies major, and derived in part from an AAC&U Mini Grant for Civic Learning in the Major by Design he received in 2018.

Part of an interdisciplinary panel that included faculty from communications studies and informatics departments, Muchnick’s talk featured student-driven, service-learning projects from recent years such as the Power Dialog, the Tiny House Project, and highlighted partnerships with the Patuxent Tidewater Land Trust to train students as Land Steward Monitors and with Historic St. Mary’s City to break ground on a new Heirloom Garden to grow period appropriate produce for the museum’s food-based living history demonstrations.

The conference audience included over 1,800 faculty, staff, and administrators from higher education institutions across the country. It was an ideal forum to foreground the entrepreneurial academic work conducted by the environmental studies program.

SMCM Hosts Second Annual Research Excellence Workshop

Dr. Jeff Osborn presenting faculty workload models

St. Mary’s College of Maryland held the second annual Research Excellence Workshop (REW) on January 11th 2019 in Daugherty-Palmer-Commons and the Blackistone Room in Anne Arundel Hall. The REW provides broad professional development opportunities (beyond grants), institutional support for and recognition of faculty research, scholarship and creative activities. The specific goals of the 2019 REW workshop were to: present funding and research opportunities to arts, social science and humanities faculty, discuss faculty workload and research integration into scaffolded undergraduate curricula, formally recognize the efforts of faculty and staff in seeking external funding to support their endeavors, and provide a forum for networking with external guests and colleagues across campus.

The day’s events included:

  • Funding and research opportunities in the arts, social sciences and humanities (e.g., Smithsonian, Social Science Research Council, MD State Arts Council, NEH, MD Humanities, Library of Congress, Folgers Shakespeare Library, ACLS, external foundations). Presented by: Lauren Sampson, SMCM Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, Dr. Sabine Dillingham, SMCM Director of Research and Sponsored Programs, and Marilyn Hatza, Program Officer Grants & Strategic Partnerships, MD Humanities. The scheduled NEH visit by John D. Cox, Deputy Director, NEH Division of Education Programs had to be cancelled due to the partial federal government shutdown but might be re-scheduled for later in the spring semester.
  • Lunch, inaugural Sponsored Research Awards, and ‘Meet & Greet’ with external stakeholders. In celebration of outstanding efforts and achievements, Dr. Julie King, Professor of Anthropology, was recognized as Most Successful Grant Seeker; Dr. Angela Johnson, Professor of Educational Studies, and Dr. Cassie Gurbisz, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, were recognized as First-time Awardees. We also held a drawing where the number of free raffle tickets for faculty and staff was equal to the number of proposals they submitted for external funding in FY18. Dr. Samantha Elliott’s ticket was selected from the random drawing, earning her a note of congratulations and $25 gift card to the campus bookstore. External networking guests included Ms. Hatza from MD Humanities, researchers from Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (Drs. Tom Miller, Dave Secor, Carys Mitchelmore, Hali Kilbourne, and Johan Schijf), Morgan State’s PEARL (Dr. Tom Ihde, Dr. Ming Liu, Richard Lacouture, and Amber DeMarr), and Dr. Jeff Osborn, TCNJ Dean of the School of Science, AAAS and CUR Fellow.
  • Presentation by Dr. Osborn, introducing the CUR Transformations Project with emphasis on creating a more research-rich, connected, and scaffolded curriculum, and an overview of faculty workload models that work well for primarily undergraduate institutions such as SMCM. The SMCM CUR-Transformations teams also provided brief overviews of their goals and progress.
  • Panel discussion on faculty workload solutions and research integration into scaffolded undergraduate curricula facilitated by Dr. Katherine Gantz. Panelists included: Dr. Osborn, Provost Michael Wick, Dr. Joe Lucchesi, Dr. Aileen Bailey, Dr. Pamela Mertz, and Dr. Christine Wooley.

Sincere thanks to all the attendees and congratulations again to our inaugural sponsored research awardees! The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs plans to hold annual research-focused workshops in support of faculty and staff scholarship. If you have ideas about future topics of interest or networking partners, please contact Sabine Dillingham at x4192, sldillingham@smcm.edu.

 

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St. Mary’s College Environmental Studies to Receive Grant to Spur Civic Learning in Major by Design

SMCM student and Professor Muchnick in the field

The Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) awarded Barry Muchnick, assistant professor of environmental studies at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a mini-grant to advance civic learning and social responsibility as expected dimensions within students’ majors.

Muchnick’s grant was one of 24 awarded by AAC&U out of the 134 applications, indicating widespread interest in rethinking departmental disciplinary designs for learning, life, work, and citizenship. The Civic Prompts: Civic Learning in the Major by Design initiative is supported by a grant from the Endeavor Foundation and aims to limit the civic-free zones within departments.

“The environmental studies program at St. Mary’s College is excited to expand and deepen our commitment to civic education and to continue to offer new opportunities for student engagement and leadership both inside and outside the classroom,” Muchnick said.

The award secured by Muchnick will help fund a June 6 and 7 workshop at St. Mary’s College tasked to better integrate civic learning and social responsibility into the environmental studies program. The workshop is also sponsored by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers

“Educating for democracy is more critical than ever, and AAC&U is proud to support the departments and institutions receiving grants for their commitment to advancing liberal education in the major as a foundation for fostering civic engagement,” said AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella in a press release announcing the awards.

Tidewater Project Seeks to Broaden Climate Change Education In Curriculum

The Tidewater Project brought six St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) faculty and eight local experts together on October 8 and 9, 2017, to discuss cross-disciplinary approaches to effective climate change education. Headed by Dr. Barry Muchnick, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, the Tidewater Project centered on leveraging campus and community resources to strengthen climate literacy and sustainability awareness and to integrate sustainability into our institution’s strategic future.

Represented disciplines included: Art & Art History, Biology, Sociology, Political Science, Philosophy, and Religious Studies. Local experts and faculty gathered at the Brome Howard Inn to create new and renovated courses using innovative interdisciplinary teaching methods, discuss ideas for research projects, grants, and publications, expand their own knowledge about practical action to mitigate climate change, strengthen community ties, enhance wellness, and enrich connections to the natural world. Program organizers and participants were thrilled with the project outcomes, and valuable impacts continue to be realized as reimagined programming focusing on climate change education is implemented on campus.

The Tidewater Project was primarily funded by a University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science grant awarded to Dr. Muchnick, with additional support generously provided by SMCM’s Office of Sustainability. Organizers are exploring options to host similar workshops in future years to reach additional individuals, and to build on the positive momentum generated to date.

Tidewater Project faculty participants, from left to right: Drs. Barry Muchnick, Susan Grogan, Emily Casey, Andrew Cognard-Black, Jessica Malisch, Kristy Lewis, and Charles Stein.

SMCM Announces 2018 Cohort of SURF Researchers

The 2018 cohort of SURF students with co-directors Dr. Rhoda (top left) and Dr. Emerson (top right)

As the Spring 2018 semester draws to a close, a group of students with diverse interests and backgrounds are preparing to take part in the St. Mary’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program this summer. The SURF program partners students from intentionally varied disciplines with faculty mentors to engage in directed research or creative work. While working full-time for eight weeks on their individual projects, students will also participate in workshops and group meetings to develop their professional skills. The SURF program will culminate in a symposium in July 2018, allowing each student to showcase their finished projects to the campus and local community.

Nine students were chosen during a competitive selection process to participate in the SURF program this summer:

Justyce Bennett, a junior DeSousa-Brent Scholar studying anthropology, is working on a project entitled “Visual and Material Cultures of Slavery: The View from Art History” under the guidance of Assistant Professor of Art History Emily Casey. Justyce will research the methodology of archaeologists and art historians to establish an interdisciplinary approach to the interpretation of artifacts found on sites that relate to slavery. The project’s purpose is to develop a critical method for approaching these artifacts that connects them to larger visual cultures and provides insight into the culture and lives of enslaved people, while also allowing room for personal agency and creativity.

A sophomore studying chemistry and applied math, Nick D’Antona is conducting the project “Printing Perovskite Solar Cells: A Low-cost Production Method for Renewable Energy”. Nick and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Troy Townsend hope to layer inks with an automated printing process so that they consistently produce stable and efficient solar cells. Nick hopes to earn his PhD in chemistry, but first wants to be a research chemist and explore the materials sciences. He hopes to gain better presentation skills and is thankful for the research experience available through the SURF program.

James Judlick is a junior studying psychology. His project “Queer Eye for the Employer: A Résumé Audit Study for LGBTQ Individuals” is a study of possible discrimination against LGBTQ men as they apply to administrative, clerical, and management positions. The project will be mentored by Dr. Ayse Ikizler, an Assistant Professor of Psychology with a background in the effects of  oppression of marginalized groups and the intersectionality of identity. James is looking forward to the collaborative and interdisciplinary aspects of the SURF program, hoping to become a group therapist in the future.

Bethany Laffan is a sophomore English major who is working with Professor of English Jeffery Coleman on the project “Literary Rock Star: A Reception Study of Haruki Murakami’s Popularity in Japan and the United States”. Analyzing the novels Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle through various psychoanalytical theories, Bethany hopes her research will reveal intercultural connections between readers in Japan and the United States. She hopes to use SURF to gain more experience in research and analysis and later become an English professor or librarian.

Lily Pohlenz is working on a biology-focused project,  “What’s the Buzz on Somatic Wolbachia Infection? Using Drosophila Melanogaster as a Model Organism to Understand the Control of Disease Transmission in Mosquitoes”. She will be conducting research under the guidance of Assistant Professor of Biology Kevin Emerson. Since somatic Wolbachia infection limits disease transmission among mosquitos, Lily and Dr. Emerson are attempting to learn its method of growth as a potential mechanism for preventing the spread of vector transmitted diseases. Lily is majoring in biology, with a minor in philosophy. She hopes to travel and help others during a future stint with the Peace Corps and later work as a physician’s assistant. Lily is looking forward to designing a project and conducting experimental research as part of her SURF experience.

Collaborating with Research & Instruction Librarian Amanda VerMeulen, Stephanie Schoch is working on the project “Visualizing Refugee Health Data: Impact of Domain-specific Knowledge on Comprehension”. Stephanie is a computer science and psychology double major graduating in May 2019. Her project will investigate the role of domain-specific knowledge in health data visualizations. This research specifically focuses on how healthcare domain knowledge affects comprehension of data visualizations with varying properties and attributes. She plans to apply for PhD programs in the fall, with current research interests including human-computer interaction, UX (user experience) design, and data visualization.

Kelly Healy will work with Assistant Professor of Biochemistry Shanen Sherrer on her project titled “Cutting a Pathway: Locating Binding Site of Environmental Contaminant Cadmium in Metal-binding Protein”. Kelly is a junior, double majoring in biology and biochemistry with a minor in music. She hopes that SURF will give her more research experience and prepare her for grad school.

With Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Barry Muchnick, Elizabeth (Izzy) Peterson is conducting the project “A Call to Animate: A Study and Subversion of Propaganda’s Power”. A studio arts major with a minor in film & media studies Izzy hopes to work in the film industry as a production designer. Her research is focused on analyzing propaganda films of the early 20th century, such as Disney war bond shorts, Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, the films of Leni Riefenstahl, and more. She intends to uncover the techniques behind successful propaganda films and employ them in her own animated short film she hopes will serve as a “call to enlist” for women in the arts.

The SMCM community wishes this summer’s cohort of SURF students the best of luck and anticipates many exciting outcomes from their scholarship!

~St. Mary’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship~

SMCM Wraps Up Spirit of Jazz and Democracy Program

Music has always been a means of salvation. This can be seen in a recently completed project, “From Slavery to Freedom in St. Mary’s City: Engaging History to Strengthen Democracy with Jazz”. Created by Professor of Philosophy Sybol Anderson and Professor of English Jeff Coleman, this project served to promote the intersectionality between democracy, creative expression, and slavery in southern Maryland. The project was supported by the Maryland Humanities Council, and engaged community members of all ages and backgrounds in historical, cultural, and philosophical reflection on the meaning of slavery in St. Mary’s City and beyond. Participants explored how African-Americans liberated themselves from oppression by “improvising” methods of “physical” escape from slavery and of spiritual escape in jazz; and how through engaging this history, one can liberate themselves for an inclusive democracy. The multi-disciplinary project intentionally varied both it’s engagement medium (symposiums, lectures, and workshops) and it’s content (archaeological finds, jazz concerts, and spoken-word performances).

Program events included a symposium held on September 23rd, 2017 at which St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) faculty, students, and visiting scholars shared with the general public information about the discovery of archaeological evidence that St. Mary’s Female Seminary owned slaves in the 19th century. Discussions highlighted narratives about those enslaved people and slavery in Maryland. For democracy to flourish, the truth about slavery in Maryland has to be uncovered and recognized, allowing for healing, inspiration, and understanding.

Workshops entitled “Improvisation, Self-Emancipation, and Democratic Participation,” were held in October and November 2017. Through historical study, philosophical reflection, and improvisational activities, participants explored the themes of improvisation, innovation, and freedom linking jazz and democracy. They learned how jazz stimulates free thought and expression and how to employ jazz concepts in daily life to nurture democratic listening and practice.

Along with the symposium and workshops was a lecture and performance titled “The Spirit of Jazz and Democracy.”  The opening lecture was part of the aforementioned symposium that illuminated jazz as the embodiment of democracy and traced it from slavery to innovations by Maryland jazz artists such as Billie Holiday to its use by the US government to promote ideas of American democracy globally. The closing lecture and performance on December 8th, 2017, featured workshop participants’ reflections on the connections between jazz and democracy.

Exploring the local African-American narrative and its connection to liberation and democracy through jazz was a profound research approach. This project was able to unite scholars from varied disciplines, as well as students and local SMCM community members, thus succeeding in the goal of bring SMCM closer together, engaging with the past for a better, more democratic, future.

This project was made possible by a grant from Maryland Humanities, through support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Maryland Humanities.

SMCM students attending the 2018 National Conference on Undergraduate Research

In April 2018, students, faculty, and academics alike will travel to the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, OK for a very special event. The National Conference on Undergraduate Research  (NCUR), annually invites accepted students to present their undergraduate research from a variety of disciplines. After a competitive review, three St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) students have been awarded the opportunity to share their research and academic achievements at NCUR 2018.  

One of these successful students is Hannah Murphy, a graduating senior studying Spanish. She has been conducting research on increasing the retention of critical thinking skills in students that speak English as a second language. Using local middle school students as her focus, she hopes to develop critical thinking skills using articles in the students’ native language, and show that those skills transfer over when students use English. She will assess students critical thinking skills before and after relevant articles are read in the native language and will share her results at the NCUR conference. Hannah hopes to promote the importance of native languages and how they can be used to better the students educational experience, instead of hindering it.

Sidi Chleuh working on Fulbe linguistic research

Another notable student is Sidi Chleuh, a senior here at SMCM. He is studying International Languages and Cultures, with a double concentration in French and Spanish. He will be presenting his research on Fulbe oral literature at NCUR. The Fulbe are an ethno-linguistic group located in West Africa and have had their linguistic culture influenced by the spread of Islam and colonization. Sidi hopes to revive the importance of the Fulbe language and show how Fulbe proverbs impact culture throughout time. Sidi has conducted much of his fieldwork in the Republic of Guinea, collecting notes on the Fulbe language from the former colonial administration records, as well as past anthropological work. He will present his findings and showcase how Fulbe proverbs impact local identity, as well as influence values and knowledge. Sidi conducted much of this research in the summer of 2017, as part of the St. Mary’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship program. After graduation, Sidi hopes to continue travelling and to share his passion for languages as he contemplates future education. 

Chikondi Kulemeka is researching female Muslim identity in France

Also going to NCUR is Chikondi Kulemeka, presenting ‘Beyond the Veil: Exploring the Many Layers of Muslim Women’s Identity in Nice, France’. Seeing the rising rate of Islamophobia in Europe, Chikondi has researched the daily life of Muslim women in France. She focuses her research on one woman particularly. This woman was born in Morocco, but grew up in France and is currently attending Nice University. Chikondi used this woman as a main focus of her interviews and research, helping to describe the bigger picture of the female Muslim experience in France as a whole. This research can show the opinions and experience of these individuals during their daily life. Through interviews and a detailed literature review, she hopes to shed light on the unique perspectives that these female Muslim individuals have as they navigate through their layered identities.

Past SMCM students presenting their work at NCUR have included Elizabeth Wenker ’17 and Brad Davidson’s ’17 research with white-crowned sparrows in Dr. Malisch’s lab (NCUR 2017) and Alex Schoen ’17 and Mary Korendyke’s mathematical modeling research with Dr. Socha (NCUR 2016).

 

 

 

Katharina von Kellenbach to lead study of guilt as a culturally productive force

Katharina von Kellenbach, professor of religious studies and her colleague Matthias Buschmeier (German literature, University of Bielefeld) were awarded a prestigious grant for over €500,000 (about $600,000) by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZIF) at the University of Bielefeld for the 2018-2019 academic year.

She and Dr. Buschmeier will lead 15 scholars from different continents representing the disciplines of anthropology, art, classics, law, medieval studies, philosophy, psychology, religious studies, and sociology to examine the idea of guilt as an enduring and generative force in the aftermath of violent conflicts.

Titled “Felix Culpa? Guilt as a Culturally Productive Force,” the research group will be in residence at the ZIF in Bielefeld to exchange theoretical perspectives on the notion of ‘productive guilt’ and to pursue individual projects examining a variety of topics ranging from white guilt in the United States to the Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide, from religious healing rituals in Mozambique to the reception of Syrian refugees in Germany as negotiation of different kinds of guilt.
The project closely examines the intersections of violence, shame, and guilt to ask how guilt consolidates social orders in the cultural production of jurisprudence, art, literature, and religion. Each scholar pursues their own research project while engaging in collaborative discussion across disciplines and different religious, cultural, and linguistic contexts to explore the wealth of symbolic representations and discourses of guilt.

SMCM Professor of Chinese Jingqi Fu Awarded Major Language Documentation Project Grant

Dr. Jingqi Fu, SMCM Professor of Chinese, in Yunnan Province, Summer 2016

Dr. Jingqi Fu, Professor of Chinese at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, was awarded funding in April 2017 from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme through SOAS, University of London for her project titled: Documentation and Preservation of an Endangered Ethnic Minority Language in China. Fu will travel to China extensively over the next three years to document the Lemo language that, to date, has no written script. “Lemo is the oldest dialect of Bai and is known to have separated from the Bai some 300-400 years ago,” explains Fu. “Its study will give clues as to the evolution of the Bai language as a whole.”

Dr. Fu’s linguistic research interests carry on work conducted by her mother, Lin Xu, who spoke the ethnic minority language of Bai during her childhood. Fu’s linguistic knowledge of the Bai dialect and structure, learned alongside her mother, provides a framework for the documentation effort she will lead as principal investigator on the three-year grant.

The research goal is both a linguistic study of the Lemo dialect and an enhancement of the status of Lemo language and culture. According to Fu, the Chinese government wants to document the culture by way of costumes in a museum but is not trying to keep the culture (and language) alive. The Endangered Languages Documentation Programme “supports keeping endangered languages alive and emphasizes that their documentation should be done in natural, everyday settings and situations, to best characterize the language and its cultural role” Fu remarks. All recordings will be archived in the Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS and thereby preserved for posterity. The archive makes this invaluable resource available to the community, the public, and to the scientific community.

Fu spent three weeks in China during the summer of 2016 to prepare for the project, with the work beginning in earnest in summer 2017. A second summer in 2018, followed by a five-month stretch during spring 2019, will bring the project to completion.

Fu is principal investigator but will enlist a team to help with the research and data gathering. Representatives from the Yunnan Nationality Affair Commission and Dali Bai Research Institute, plus a technician and speaker-consultants recruited from the Lemo Community in Nujiang will form the research team.

The first two weeks in Nujiang will be spent making contacts with relevant people and conducting a week-long workshop on language documentation for speaker-consultants to learn to document their own language and culture. Afterwards, team members, equipped with recorders and cameras will gather data in different Lemo-speaking villages. Members will film and record in a variety of settings and contexts: story-telling, interviews, folksongs and dances, speeches, everyday situations, and, if permitted, religious ceremonies.

Once audio/video is captured, researchers and speaker-consultants will work to transcribe the data using open source software developed to annotate text, audio, and video media and generate the lexicon/dictionary of the language. In addition to the dictionary, the team will also build a grammar sketch. Both the dictionary and grammar sketch use data generated from the recorded audio/video. A working orthography (the way a language is expressed in written form, with symbols, punctuation, spelling) will be developed together with the Lemo community and a short language manual will be made based on the orthography. The manual, intended for first-grade children, will include cultural material relevant to their living environment.

Fu is grateful for the support she’s received to get this research funded. A summer grant from the St. Mary’s College Board of Trustees enabled her to travel to China this past summer in preparation for the work she’ll do under the current grant.

Fu has taken SMCM students on study tours to study and interact with Yunnan minority groups including Bai, as recently as 2015. In 2014, her students Megan Dower ’14, Naomi Garcia ’15, and Meng Fei Chen ’16 helped with the research on folksong translations.