Converse Students Shine at College Symposium
***This article appeared in the March 27th edition of the Spartanburg Herald Journal and was written by Gary Glancy*** Some of the brightest and most innovative local minds in higher education converged on the Milliken & Co. headquarters Friday for an event with its ultimate mission on full display.
Nearly 200 students and faculty from a dozen colleges and universities—including all seven local schools—spent the morning presenting more than 30 current research projects in numerous disciplines, ranging from environmental issues to biology to history and politics, at the sixth annual S.C. Upstate Research Symposium.
The event served not only as a showcase for the original work being initiated at all these non-research schools, but also as an opportunity for institutions to share ideas and form partnerships that could spark future research.
“Many of these (projects) are collaborations that resulted from previous symposiums—between Wofford and (the University of South Carolina) Upstate, Converse…and a few others,” said symposium chairman Sebastian van Delden, who also is director of research support at USC Upstate. “That’s one of the major reasons for doing this, so it’s been really exciting.”
Scholars from Converse, Limestone, Sherman College of Chiropractic, Spartanburg Community College, Spartanburg Methodist College, USC Upstate, Wofford and other schools in the region bounced from room to room hearing brief presentations from students and faculty, followed by question-and-answer sessions after each. The topics included such diverse issues as intervention methods to curb bullying in young children, land-elevation effects on cancer mortality rates in the Carolinas and increasing healthy lunchtime eating decisions at the elementary-school level.
“I think this is very important,” said Xochitl Arzeta-Ferrer, part of a group of Converse students who won the Best Student Paper Award in the social science category for their project about the effects of caffeine on time perception. “It allows us to get ideas from different areas, where at our college we’re only exposed to ideas that are going on around us. This allows us to see what other universities and colleges are doing and what other people think, and they give us their input.”
Student awards were presented in various disciplines for best research paper, best presentation and the best of about 20 posters that outlined respective research projects.
USC Upstate had the most winners with six, followed by Converse with five.
Hadassa Legrand, a nurse at St. Francis Hospital who earned the Best Student Poster Award for health science and biology, met with several inquiring visitors at her setup. Legrand’s poster outlined the research project she conducted as a nursing student last year at USC Upstate, which addresses the high breast cancer rates of African-American women and the need to remove fear and distrust in getting tested.
After sitting in on several breakout presentations relating to health care and biology, “I can actually go back (to work) and tell nurses what I learned and how we can educate our patients,” she said.
Other event sponsors were Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System and the Spartanburg Regional Foundation.
Best Student Paper Awards
Health Science and Biology: Veronica Obregon (Inhibition of Colchicine-Induced Genotoxicity in Rats by Herbal Supplement Can-Immu).
Social Science: Lizzy Powell, Xochitl Arzeta-Ferrer, Veronica Obregon and Samantha Renaud (Identifying the Role of Adenosine Receptor Subtypes in Temporal Perception).
Humanities: Emily Green (Fractured and Putting the Pieces Back Together: Identity and Trauma).
Best Student Presentation Awards
Health Science and Biology: Veronica Obregon (Inhibition of Colchicine-Induced Genotoxicity in Rats by Herbal Supplement Can-Immu).
Social Science: Christin Fedina (The Effects of Annotations on Test Performance).