Grad students, faculty present research at Fetzer Center

By Fritz Klug
News Editor

Tessa Ziebarth showed baroque artistic techniques in the 1962 novel “La Muerte de Artemio Cruz,” Karen Bondarchuk displayed a giant crow made from old tires and drawings from her Corvus series and John Panos presented on preclinical abuse liability screening of the Ethoxymethyl ether derivative of salvinorin B (EOM-SB) in comparison to morphine.

These graduate students and faculty members were part of over 60 poster presentations which made up the fourth annual WMU Research and Creative Activities Poster Day on Friday, April 9.

Rooms 1035, 1045, and 1055 of the Fetzer Center were transformed into a research bazaar, with rows of posters hung, providing an overview of research ranging from biological analyses to creative projects.

Faculty that presented were recipients of a Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award.

For graduate students, it was a good way to learn how to present in a conference setting, Brandi Pritchett, chairperson of the Graduate Student Advisory Committee said, “It also helps build interdisciplinary relationships between departments.”

Biological sciences professor Shannon Gill presented ongoing research she is conducting on animals that live in social groups and how hormones affect conflict and cooperation between them.

Gill has traveled to Panama for her studies on birds. To see the effects of testosterone on social interactions of birds, Gill injects chemicals into male birds that trigger an increase in testosterone production, and how that impacts social interactions in the birds.

Instead of a poster, graduate student Gordon van Gent set up a computer playing a digitized recording of his 15-minute, one movement, orchestrated Drop B electric guitar composition Rend the Heavens.

van Gent said he liked to see what other members in the university are researching.

“I’m amazed to see people who find one little thing and spend their life studying it,” van Gent said. “People have to study this stuff.”

Last year’s emerging scholar Takashi Yoshida, associate professor of history, gave the keynote address.

The other recipient, Michael Grammer, a professor in the department of geosciences, was unable to speak because he was out of town.

Yoshida’s presentation surveyed peace museums in Japan.

Before World War II, the Yūshūkan war and military museum in Tokyo was a popular destination, drawing millions of visitors annually.

Children were able to experience sitting in an airplane cockpit and drop bombs, as well as experience modern warfare firsthand in the “gas experience room” (with a gas mask).
Yoshida said that the pre-war museums exhibited a blind patriotism.

The content of museums shifted after WWII. The Yūshūkan museum still exits, but no longer includes the popular prewar exhibits.

The new museum is to shed a new light on Japanese history.

The best peace museums, Yoshida said, are ones like the Kyoto Museum for World Peace at Ritsumeikan University that show a universal notion of human rights. Featuring pieces from Japanese history, the Kyoto museum has images from peace movements across the world, including the American Vietnam War protests in the 1960s.

“A peace museums doesn’t work when it contributes to the perspective of their own people,” Yoshida said.

Research is an important part of the university, Steven Ziebarth, chair of the Research Policies Council, said.

“Research is the foundation for the discovery of new knowledge,” Ziebarth said. “We teach students, and make them good citizens, but the other half is generating new knowledge.”

The idea for the event came from students who wanted a venue to display their research, Susan Stapleton, associate dean for the College of Arts and Sciences, said.

At the end of the award ceremony, 15 students were awarded a $200 prize for their presentations and posters.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Apr 11 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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