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

New Partnership Between Environmental Studies and Historic St. Mary’s City Receives Grant Award from the Maryland Agriculture Council

From left to right: Project Coordinators Peter Friesen, Barry Muchnick, Madeline Beller (’19), and Bonnie Kangas

On Thursday, February 7, a faculty, staff, and student team representing the Heirloom Garden Project – a new partnership between the Environmental Studies Program at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Historic St. Mary’s City – received a grant award from the Maryland Agriculture Council during the Annual Taste of Maryland Agriculture gala in Glen Burnie, MD.

Hosted by The Maryland Agriculture Council – whose mission is to promote Maryland agriculture and to educate the public on its importance – the award gala included special presentations from U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, Governor Larry Hogan, and Joseph Bartenfelder, Secretary, Maryland Department of Agriculture. Attendees included a large contingent of Senators and Delegates from Maryland’s General Assembly and Congressional Delegation.

Selected from a large, competitive pool of proposals as an outstanding example of creative and unique programs being done on a local level, the Heirloom Garden Project will grow historically accurate heirloom crops for living history programs at Historic St. Mary’s City; facilitate agriculture-based service learning opportunities for St. Mary’s students; and produce educational materials about the importance of past and present sustainable agriculture practices for the general public.

Project Coordinators Dr. Barry Ross Muchnick, assistant professor environmental studies, and Peter Friesen, Director of Education at historic St. Mary’s City, accepted the award on behalf of the project, along with Bonnie Kangas, acting manager at the Kate Chandler Campus Community Farm and environmental studies major Madeline Beller (’19), a student member of the larger team that collaborated on the project proposal.

Environmental Studies students researched and wrote the grant proposal as part of the upper-level, interdisciplinary Keystone Seminar (ENST490) in Fall 2018, which examined the relationship between food systems and environmental citizenship. Committed to learning through experiential and applied discovery, the seminar hosted a grant-writing workshop by Sabine Dillingham, Director of Research and Sponsored Programs, and enabled students to break ground on the project through structured service-learning hours and reflection writing assignments.

Located at the Kate Chandler Campus Community Farm, The Heirloom Garden Project embodies how the Environmental Studies Program links theory and practice by building bridges between campus and the broader community.

For more information about the Heirloom Garden Project, or to learn how you can volunteer, contact brmuchnick@smcm.edu

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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Professor Sue Johnson Awarded Two Residency Fellowships

Sue Johnson, professor of art, has been awarded two residency fellowships in 2019: The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation Residency Fellowship in New York and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship in Amherst, Virginia.

The Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts awarded 18 artists from around the world for its 2019 residency program from more than 320 applications. The program begins in March and runs through October. Residents live and work in a completely renovated 19th-century barn for four weeks and have access to an unlimited supply of acrylics, oils, watercolors and custom materials.

Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency Fellowship is one of the leading artists communities in the world with locations in Amherst, Virginia, and Auvillar, France. The VCCA hosts over 400 fellow-artists at Mt. San Angelo in central Virginia and 40 fellow-artists at the Moulin à Nef in France. The artists who come to VCCA are selected by a peer review jury on the basis of the important or innovative work they are doing in their respective fields.

Assistant Professor Freedman Awarded Grant from the Spencer Foundation

Gili Freedman, assistant professor of psychology, has received a grant for $49,051 from the Spencer Foundation for her work on “Changing Attributions to Improve Persistence of Women in STEM.” Partnering with Dr. Melanie Green from University at Buffalo, Dr. Freedman will conduct a set of three studies on women’s attributions in STEM fields to explore avenues to increase retention of women in STEM. Prior research suggests that women may make different attributions than men when receiving lower grades in introductory science courses than in other fields. Based upon initial research, Dr. Freedman and Dr. Green will design an intervention to help first-year students make better attributions such as seeing lower grades as an indication of the challenging nature of the courses rather than a lack of ability. The findings from this research will provide valuable knowledge about the attribution processes among women in STEM and new methods of intervening to increase retention.

Two SMCM Students Win Beta Beta Beta Undergraduate Research Grants

Undergraduate Researcher Brooke Steinhoff

Undergraduate researcher Brooke Steinhoff ’19

Two SMCM students were recently awarded Beta Beta Beta (TriBeta) Undergraduate Research Grants to help fund their St. Mary’s Projects. Brooke Steinhoff was awarded $500 for her SMP titled: “Evaluating the efficacy of L-655, 708 direct injection into the medial prefrontal cortex”. Steinhoff is working in Professor of Psychology Aileen Bailey’s lab.

Livia Schuller holds a white-throated sparrow

Livia Schuller ’19 holds a white-throated sparrow

Livia’s Schuller was also awarded $500 from TriBeta to help fund her SMP: “Effect of migration distance on body condition and response to physiological stressors in White-throated Sparrows”. Schuller is working with Assistant Professor of Biology Jessica Malisch.

TriBeta is a national biological honor society for students, particularly undergraduates, dedicated to improving the understanding and appreciation of biological study and extending boundaries of human knowledge through scientific research. The SMCM community sincerely congratulates both students on these latest accomplishments and very much appreciates the support from TriBeta.

Professor Julia King Featured in The Washington Post

Professor of Anthropology Julia King is featured in Nov. 21 edition of The Washington Post. King’s research team includes St. Mary’s College of Maryland alumni Scott Strickland (’08), Catherine Dye (’17) and Max Sickler (’18), along with current students through King’s anthropology classes.Julie King sorting samples in the field

King, in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Chesapeake Conservancy, and the state-recognized Rappahannock Tribe of Virginia, has been tracing the history and development of the Rappahannock Indians in early American history (200-1850 AD). This research is supported by 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.

The full Washington Post article can be found here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/the-indians-were-right-the-english-were-wrong-a-virginia-tribe-reclaims-its-past/2018/11/21/2380f92c-e8f4-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html?utm_term=.a8695d72b1b0

SMCM Faculty and Staff Working to Transform Undergraduate Research

St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) was well represented and very well received at the second annual meeting of the Council on Undergraduate Research Transformations Project (CUR-T), funded by the National Science Foundation (Award no. 1625354). The inter-disciplinary SMCM team attending the conference included Drs. Mertz, Neiles, Bowers, Dillingham, Wooley, Koenig, and Foster.

SMCM faculty and staff at the November 2018 CUR conference

SMCM CUR Transformations Project Team Members at 2018 Conference (L to R: Drs. Mertz, Neiles, Bowers, Dillingham, Wooley, Koenig, and Foster)

The CUR Transformations Project aims to understand and incorporate successful strategies to integrate high-quality undergraduate research (UGR) throughout four-year undergraduate STEM curricula. SMCM’s contribution to this ambitious nation-wide endeavor focuses on undergraduate research integration in the disciplines of psychology and chemistry & biochemistry, and we have a committed team of 16 faculty and administrators working toward this goal.

The 2018 annual meeting allowed all 12 institutions participating in the CUR-T project to highlight their progress toward achieving project goals, and by all accounts our SMCM psychology and chemistry/biochemistry teams excelled and impressed. Congratulations to all of them, and please feel free to ask them about their CUR-T-related progress and insights. Each team works to create a more research-rich, connected, and scaffolded curriculum, and contributes to two major research questions: 1) What effect do student characteristics (e.g., preexisting academic preparation) have on scaffolded integration of UGR into the curriculum and student learning outcomes? 2) How do different STEM disciplines/departments effectively integrate the components and outcomes of high-quality UGR to reach more students? The CUR-T principal investigators received NSF funding to answer these pertinent questions in order to advance the academy’s understanding of effective teaching and learning and the disciplinary and cultural factors necessary for curricular integration and transformation. Collectively, we are at the cutting edge of STEM curricular transformations.

SMCM Chemistry CUR Conference PosterSMCM Chemistry Department CUR Transformations Project - November 2018 Poster

SMCM Psychology CUR Conference Poster

SMCM Psychology Department CUR Transformations Project - November 2018 Poster

 

Gurbisz’s Research on Chesapeake Bay Grasses Featured in Baltimore Sun

St. Mary’s College Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Cassie Gurbisz’s research on Chesapeake Bay grasses is featured in an article in today’s Baltimore Sun. The article discusses the impact of flooding on oysters and grasses as another surge of stormwater and pollution flows through Conowingo Dam. Gurbisz is pictured on the front page and included in the video accompanying the story.

As another surge of stormwater and pollution flows through Conowingo Dam, scientists worry about impact on oysters, grasses

Gurbisz’s research project is being funded through an award from the Maryland Sea Grant program, a part of the University System of Maryland. Maryland Sea Grant works to develop scientifically sound ideas and practices that enhance the Chesapeake Bay’s ecology along with the businesses and jobs that depend on it. Gurbisz’s project is titled: Quantifying Nutrient Sequestration in Chesapeake Bay Submersed Aquatic Vegetation Beds.

Two SMCM Students Participate in Mathematics REU

Congratulations to the 12 students who presented their research on July 27, 2018 to conclude the SMCM Mathematics REU, a 7-week NSF-funded research experience for underrepresented students in mathematics who are early in their college careers. Over 100 students from across the country applied for the 12 positions. Two of the participants, Mariel Santos ’20 and Beth Thomas ’21, are undergraduates at SMCM. Santos’ team presented “Knots & Links: Local Moves & Polynomial Invariants.” Thomas’ team presented “Combating Tuberculosis: Using Time-Dependent Sensitivity Analysis to Develop Strategies for Treatment and Prevention.”

Mariel Santos (left) and Beth Thomas (right), just after presenting their REU research at SMCM

The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supports active research participation by undergraduate students in any of the areas of research funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). REU projects involve students in meaningful ways in ongoing research programs or in research projects specifically designed for the REU program.

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