Kevin Coriolan | News Editor
With money up for grabs for Scholars Day use, student researchers are learning to take advantage of the grants available for research funds. The final deadline to apply for a grant of up to $200 is Thursday, Feb. 27 and the Scholars Day committee will examine them during the March meeting.
Scholars Day is entering its tenth year of celebrating the work of Buena Vista University (BVU) students. On April 25, the Siebens Forum will be filled with research posters and student speakers. Presentations are done in a scheduled order with presentations of similar subject scheduled near each other. Costume materials, art supplies, and testing kits are examples of uses that the grant money has been put towards.
Chairman of the Events Committee and Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and Visual Communications Rebecca Frates said, “It can be used for anything that relates to your project.” Travel and inter-library loans are even possible to pay for with the approval of the events committee. This is done after the cost breakdown is submitted and the proposal receives Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval as well. The IRB reviews research that uses human subjects.
Fortunately for past students, all of the grant applications offered previously have been funded. After the first grants for the day were donated by a BVU alumnus four years ago, the funds were organized into the regular budget now going on three years. Harry Stine, the original donor and the founder of Stine Seed Co., thought the research grants would eliminate barriers to participation.
Three seniors who are also student teaching, Katie Riesselman, Nora Seda, and Alexis Wiltgen are planning to use their funds from a Scholars Day grant to purchase textbooks for their current classrooms. They are researching curriculum-based reader’s theater, an arts-integrated strategy that uses reading, writing, and performing to teach. For her 3rd grade class, Wiltgen will be using books about Alaska for a book report. The 3rd grade students will be tested before and after on fluency and comprehension.
Seda, an English-as-a-second-language and special education student teacher, and Riesselman, a 4th grade student teacher, are doing similar research and sharing the grant money with Wiltgen. The books will be donated after the semester as the three women hope their practices will be successful and continued. They will present together at Scholars Day as well as at the Iowa Reading Association Conference in June.
Another team working together includes seniors Karl Ahrendsen, Zach Lorenzen, and junior Arik Ostler who are doing a computer science project. They will have a physical model to show how a credit card-sized computer (called a Raspberry Pi) can turn lights off and on much like a security company can turn off the lights in a house. With the money which they have applied for, they plan to purchase the microcomputer.
The events committee also oversees other events. The selection of the American Heritage Lecture Series speaker is aided by the committee. It also recommends Commencement Day speakers and approves the regalia that are noted in the program signifying student clubs and societies. Recently approved were the Society for Human Resource Management and Spanish honors society Sigma Delta Pi.
For Scholars Day 2014, Frates lead the committee in inviting Mandy Devries as the feature speaker. Devries graduated from the school of science in 2007 and currently works at the Mayo Clinic in Mankato, MN. The keynote speaker is always a BVU alumnus, faculty recommended, and highly honored by the call.
Frates said, “It’s usually someone who the faculty remember quite fondly and remember as a hard worker.”
Photo by David Ekstrom
