This is your personal invitation to submit a poster proposal for the

Fourth Annual Graduate Student Research Poster Session
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
Graduate Student Presentations 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Stern Student Ballroom

As a graduate student who has worked on or is currently working on a research or creative project, you are encouraged to submit and present a poster at the Fourth Annual Graduate Research Poster Session.  We are inviting you to participate because you were accepted and have received a Graduate Student Research or Presentation Grant to support your research within the past year.

Poster session process and details can be found on our website under the link to research at http://gradschool.cofc.edu/currentstudents/research/research.php We have examples of past posters for reference in case you are unfamiliar with poster formats.  Please get in touch with our office for assistance if you need it when your poster proposal is accepted.   We will be sending out more detailed information later to all students whose proposals have been accepted.

We would like your program to be represented and will display as many posters as possible.  In the past all students who submitted poster proposals were able to present their posters and research or creative project, so it is a good idea to begin working on the poster early.

A brief timeline:

By November 17 – Deadline extended to November 20 — poster proposals are due to the Program Director from the student  (see website for proposal format)

By November 24 – reviewed and selected poster proposals are due to Dean McCandless, from the Program Director

By December 1 — ad hoc committee will select the 50 posters proposals to include in the poster session

By December 8 — students and program directors, supervising faculty, will have been notified of the selections (poster printing details will go out to those selected)

By December 20 — posters are due from students graduating in December, electronic versions to be sent to the Graduate School and posters to be printed and ready to hang

By January 15 — last chance for those students enrolled in spring classes to have posters printed and ready to hang

January 28 — Poster session — students set-up posters from 8 am to 2:30 pm and presentations are from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm, the selection of winning will also take place. Prizes will be announced and awarded the following week.

The members of the Board of Trustees will be on campus on the day of the poster session and will each receive personal invitations to attend that day. All faculty, staff and students will be invited to attend the event. Refreshments will be served.

Please contact Regina Semko with any questions: semkor@cofc.edu

March 26-27, 2010
The College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia

The Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Association of The College of William and Mary invites all graduate students in the fields of Arts & Sciences to submit abstracts for the Ninth Annual Graduate Research Symposium (GRS), to be held March 26 & 27, 2010 at the Sadler Center.  The broadly themed conference is designed to bring together graduate students from differing areas of study and from all stages of the degree process.  The congenial setting and professionally-oriented environment provides an opportunity for students to explain and discuss their research, while fostering community relationships across discipline boundaries.

All accepted William & Mary Arts & Sciences and visiting presenters are eligible to submit a 10 – 12 page paper for award consideration (over $4600 in cash prize awards anticipated)!  Please go to the Awards page for details.

Please note that all research presented at the GRS must have received prior approval from all co-authors and the appropriate Institutional Compliance Committees.  Each graduate student may submit only ONE abstract of no more than 1,700 characters including spaces (approximately 250 words), in one of the following categories:

1)  Natural & Computational Sciences Talk:  Twelve minute talks with three minutes for questions
(Typical Disciplines: Applied Science, Biology, Chemistry, Clinical Psychology, Computer Science, & Physics)
2)  Humanities & Social Sciences Talk:  Sixteen minute talks with four minutes for questions
(Typical Disciplines: American Studies, Anthropology, History, Psychology, & Public Policy)
3)  Poster Presentation:  One hour long poster session
(All Disciplines)

First Call for Abstracts:  October 5, 2009
Second Call for Abstracts:  November 2, 2009
Last Call for Abstracts:  November 27, 2009

Abstract Submission Deadline:  December 4, 2009  11:59 pm E.S.T.

Abstract Acceptance/Rejection Notification:  January 11, 2010

For more information or to submit abstracts, visit http://web.wm.edu/grs/.

Related Links
2010 GIS Conference

Dean McCandless Punting on the Cherwell River

From time to time, we like to keep you updated on the excellent scholarly work in which our faculty, staff, and students engage. Here in the Graduate School Office, we are proud to report that Dean Amy Thompson McCandless participated recently in a presentation of her paper at the Oxford University Roundtable on the topic of “Women in the Academy.”  Dean McCandless’s research focuses on the higher education of Southern women in the 20^th Century, and her presentation examined the historical opposition to coeducation at flagship universities in the region.

Her summary states:

“From the attempts to bar women from state flagship institutions in the 1890s to the efforts to exclude women from The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute in the 1990s, universities in the southern United States have proclaimed the deleterious effects coeducation would have on traditional gender relationships. Coeducation, one group of South Carolina students asserted, would ‘alter the spirit and tone of robust manliness of the student body which we believe to be of even greater importance than scholarship.’¹

When women were eventually allowed to matriculate, men students proceeded to ban them from clubs, activities, and buildings. Faculty ignored their presence in the classroom and/or graded them more harshly. Administrators put quotas on their admissions and imposed restrictions on their mobility. Gender discrimination in the academy was (or is) not unique to the southern United States, McCandless notes, but she believes the interrelated nature of gender and racial constructs in southern culture account for much of the historical prejudice against coeducation in the region’s institutions of higher education. It is ironic that in the 21^st century schools founded because women and blacks were barred from the top universities of southern states are now being pressured to become more ‘diverse’; i.e., open their doors to more men and whites. In the contemporary South, opposition to coeducation is more likely to come from women who argue that historic patterns of discrimination remain alive and well on today’s college campuses.”

Dean McCandless at the Oxford Union

¹ Petition to the Board of Trustees, 23 June 1903, College Archives, Special Collections, Marlene and Nathan Addlestone Library, College of Charleston.

Congratulations to Dean McCandless on her engaging presentation. To stay updated on all of her work, you can follow her here on Twitter!

Related posts

Painting a Portrait

Class Notes: Megan Prewitt Koon and Laura Swingle

We’re chirping a lot over here. Join us on Twitter.

]]> http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2009/08/05/dean-mccandless-goes-to-oxford/feed/ 0 http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2009/07/13/painting-a-portrait/ http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2009/07/13/painting-a-portrait/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:36:53 +0000 Niki DeWeese http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/?p=714 Originally posted in the Post and Courier by Diane Knich on Monday, July 13, 2009.

She trudges through the brush and along the edge of Kiawah Island’s marshes almost every day, holding a large metal antennae in the air and listening for the beeps to grow louder from the tracking machine belted to her waist.

If they do, College of Charleston graduate student Sarah Latshaw knows she’s getting closer to a painted bunting she previously equipped with a “mini-backpack” tracking device.

A student in the Master of Environmental Studies program, Latshaw recently landed a prestigious National Science Foundation fellowship to continue her studies of the brightly colored birds that are on the National Audubon Society’s watch list. She’s tracking them to learn about the kind of habitats they prefer. She thinks that when her research is complete, she’ll be able to recommend to homeowners how to best landscape their yards to encourage the birds to nest in them.

“The buntings like the areas people like,” Latshaw said. “They’re attracted to the barrier islands.”

But that’s a disadvantage for them as the population on the islands swells, she said.

Citadel biology professor Paul Nolan is Latshaw’s research advisor. Citadel biology professors often advise graduate-student research at the College of Charleston, he said, because graduate-level research in biology is limited at the military college.

Nolan, who studies bird and other animal behavior, said that the number of painted buntings has been declining since the mid-1960s. He thinks that’s probably because of increased development on the east coast, which eliminates places the birds are likely to nest. He also said many of the birds are captured and sold as pets, especially in Mexico where many painted buntings spend the winter. Little research has been done on painted buntings and their habitats, he said. So he was excited to advise Latshaw on her research.

Latshaw said that along the South Carolina coast, the birds nest and have their young from early April to September or October. They spend the winter in Mexico and Cuba.

She will catch about 15 to 20 birds over the summer and attach tiny tracking devices to their backs. The devices are attached with a biodegradable type of thread, she said. She will remove them from the birds once she is done tracking them. But if she’s unable to find a bird, the thread will decay naturally and the bird will be free of the device.

Each day, Latshaw or her technician Will Lemon track the birds with the large metal antennae. When they find one, they mark the spot. Then they note the type of vegetation around and above the spot where the bird was perched.

So far, she said, the birds seem to like vacant lots adjacent to developed lots. She also often finds them along the edge of the woods where it meets the marsh, she said. But those are simply early observations and she doesn’t know what she’ll ultimately find in her research, she said.

After the tracking phase of her research, Latshaw will analyze her data, then decide on her next steps.

As a fellow, she will receive a three-year annual stipend of $30,000 along with a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance for tuition and fees, a one-time $1,000 travel allowance and the freedom to conduct their own research.

She said she doesn’t think she would have landed the award had she not done previous research and pilot studies on painted buntings, work that was paid for by the Kiawah Conservancy.

Jim Chitwood, chairman of the conservancy’s environmental science committee, said the group tries to preserve some vacant land on the island and promote environmentally sound development practices.

Most people on Kiawah are going to landscape their yards, he said. Latshaw’s research will help them do it in a way that encourages buntings to nest. “We want to understand what we need under the trees,” he said. “And it’s just really fun to understand what makes them tick.”

Related posts
Sarah Latshaw is awarded an NSF Fellowship
Nationally Competitive Award Recipients
Update from Australia

Courtney Arthur
Knauss Fellowship
The Knauss Fellowship provides a unique educational experience to students who have an interest in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes resources and in the national policy decisions affecting those resources.  The program matches highly qualified graduate students with “hosts” in the legislative and executive branch of government located in the Washington, D.C. area, for one year paid fellowship.  Fellows receive approximately $43,000 in academic support.

Callie Van Koughnett
Knowles Foundation Teaching Fellowship
The Knowles Teaching Fellowships are for students who have received a bachelor’s or advanced degree in science, engineering or mathematics and are committed to teaching high school science and/or mathematics in U.S. schools. The fellowship supports them professionally and financially for up to five years through a teacher preparation program to eligibility for tenure.

Sara Latshaw
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships help ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and reinforces its diversity.  The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in the U.S. and abroad.  The award provides academic support of up to $30,000 per year.

Natalie Martin
Teach for America
Teach for America’s mission is to enlist the most promising future leaders to promote educational excellence and to eliminate educational inequality.  The program identifies highly qualified recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural schoools across the US.  The program provides substantial training and all participants are paid salaries and health benefits for their work.  Corps members also receive several other financial rewards.

K. Jourdan Reeves
Becker CPA Review National Scholarship
The Becker CPA Review National Scholarship provides financial support for the CPA review course to 50 students who demonstrate high moral character and leadership qualities, aspire to achieve significant career goals, plan to sit for the CPA Exam, and will meet the CPA Exam requirements.

Nicholas Rummell
Critical Languages Scholarship
The Department of State’s Critical Languages Scholarship funds an intensive summer study of a specified critical language.  The scholarship covers all program costs, tuition, travel, room, and board for the 7-11 week program.  Approximately 6,000 students apply each year with approximately 500 students awarded.

Joe Pollock is a College of Charleston Master’s of Science in Marine Biology candidate who was granted with a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Australia.  He touches base with us every now and again when he comes up for air.  Below is one of his most recent letters to us back home.  Enjoy the pictures.  We sure did!

Hello again from Down Unda,

I haven’t written in a while and I don’t want anyone to think I’ve fallen off the other side of the world so I thought I should drop a quick line. Things in Oz are goin’ well. There was a pretty awful period when we had rains of biblical proportions. We literally had 40 days and 40 nights of rain, nonstop! It was miserable, but now the sun has reemerged and it seems like the rainy season should be about over for the year. The sun has let me get back outside and I’m trying to make up for lost time. I’ve been hiking out on Magnetic Island, bouldering/swimming/surfing in Bowen, joined a beach volleyball team (we’re 3 for 3… in the lowest bracket, but oh well), and I’ve even started playing ice hockey again. I haven’t really played since they tore down the old Civic Center rink when I was in middle school so it’s been pretty awesome to get back on the ice.

My research has been going fairly smoothly so far. I’m working to develop tools to accurately diagnose coral diseases on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and around the world. Currently, there are not really any diagnostic tools, so coral diseases are distinguished almost exclusively on their macroscopic appearance (it’s like trying to identify a human disease just by looking at the patient). I think that it is an important avenue of investigation and I have been making progress. I have developed a technique to detect the pathogen responsible for the coral disease White Syndrome on the GBR and coral bleaching in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Right now, I am running aquarium experiments to tests it’s “real world” potential. I’m hoping it will work!!

Next week, I head down to Tasmania for a Fulbright retreat. Tazzy is beautiful and the other Fulbright kids are pretty fun so I’m definitely looking forward to it. We’re renting some cars so we can explore all around the island. If you’ve never seen photos of Tasmania, it’s a lot like New Zealand, with glacier-cut valleys, high lakes, waterfalls, and dense-green foliage (or as they say in Oz fo-lage).

I came to the realization the other day when I was buying a bottle of Vegemite that I may have been in Australia too long. I’ve become completely accustomed to driving on the left side of the road (I still try and get in on the wrong side of the car though), I’ve started using Ozzy phrases (I used to think that anyone who used the word “reckon” was a huge redneck), and I’ve started wearing more flouro than a 1980’s ski video (it’s really in here). I will be heading back State-side before too long though. I’m planning to return in the late-Spring or early-Summer, probably sometime in June.

Cheers,
Joe

]]> http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2009/03/16/update-from-australia/feed/ 1 http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2009/01/30/poster-session-winners/ http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/2009/01/30/poster-session-winners/#comments Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:12:50 +0000 Niki DeWeese http://blogs.cofc.edu/gradschool/?p=240 Guest blogger: Dean Amy Thompson McCandless

Thank you to everyone who participated in yesterday’s Graduate Student Research Poster Session and especially to our judges — Dean Valerie Morris, Dr. Kem Fronabarger, Dr. Mike Flynn, Dr. Phil Jos, and Dr. Ben Cox. We had a record 30 entries, and the Graduate School has already received numerous comments from faculty and staff on the impressive quality of the presentations. In fact, there were so many superior entries that it was impossible to distinguish first, second, and third places in each division. Thus, we decided to award three firsts in the Science and Math Category (includes MES, MBIO, MATH, and SMFT) and three firsts in the Humanities and Social Sciences Category (includes Communication, English, Historic Preservation, History, MPA).

Science and Math Winners (in alphabetical order)

• C. Guinn Garrett, Application of Geochemical End-Member Mixing Analysis to Delineate Water Sources in a Lowland Watershed
• Allie Kreutzer, The Role of Crab Traps in Oyster Reef Restoration
  
• Steven O’Connell,  Perfluorinated Contaminant Concentrations in Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta): Expanded Spatial and Temporal Trends along the East Coast of the United States
  

Humanities and Social Science Winners (in alphabetical order)

• Angela Dembiczak, The Axe, the Noose and the Fire: What Forms of Execution during the English Peasants’ Uprising of 1381
  
• Geoff Pallay,  Database Analysis of CARES, a Free Health Clinic
  
• Neal Polhemus, Natural Disasters and Disastrous Politics: Rebuilding Charleston’s Fortifications 1752-1756
  

Award winners should contact Regina Semko in the Graduate School (semkor@cofc.edu or 953-5614) to complete the necessary paperwork to receive their monetary awards. Niki DeWeese, Director of Information and Recruitment, will post photos from the event as well as the names of the award winners on the Graduate School web site.

Congratulations again to all participants for a job well done!

Amy Thompson McCandless, Ph.D.
Dean of the Graduate School,
Associate Provost for Research, and
Professor of History

One of the topics we covered is January’s Graduate Student Research Poster Session.  This morning’s list of participants included 23 students from six programs and the titles are super exciting!  See more after the jump.

Communication

Bryn Burkard: Examining Communication Messages and Weight Loss: Politeness Theory and the Concept of Face

Carrie Busch: Charleston’s Museum Mile: An Analysis of Organizational Collaboration

Anna-Fiona Cooke: Text and Instant Messaging in the Workplace and Its Effects on Management

Kurtis Miller: The Speech Act of Complaining: Preliminary Quantitative Research

English

Jennifer Burgess: Adjunct Anxiety: The position of Part-Time Composition Instructors at the College of Charleston

Environmental Studies

Guinn Garrett: Application of Geochemical End-Member Mixing Analysis to Delineate Water Sources in a Lowland Watershed

Tyler Lawson: Habitat Effects on Chytridiomycosis Infection in the Critically Endangered Agalychnis moreletti

Jennifer Scales: Variation in Territorial Aggression in Relation to Environmental Impacts

Kelly Sloan: The Effectiveness of Multilevel Modeling in Analyzing Sea Turtle Nesting Trends

History

Rachel Allen: A Violent Redemption: Charleston’s Own Civil War in the Gubernatorial Election of 1876

Hillary Lentz: The King of England’s Sickness: A Description of the English Sweat and an Analytical Discussion of its Origin and Treatment during the REign of Three Tudor Monarchs

Angela Dembiczak: The Axe, the Noose and the Fire: What Forms of Execution during the English Peasants’ Uprising of 1381

Kate Jenkins: School Desegregation in Charlesotn County

Neal Polhemus: Natural Disasters and Disastrous Politics: Rebuilding Charleston’s Fortifications 1752-1756

Marine Biology

Jesse Alderson: Distributions of Injured Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta) in the Southeastern United States: A 9-Year Regional Study

Jennifer Fountain: Monroe saxatilis, Release Strategies and Improve Hatchery Contribution

Megan Kent: Relative Contributions of Taxanomic Groups Within Microbial Biofloc Communities to the Growth of Litopenaues vannamei When Provided as Dietary Supplements

Allie Kreutzer: The Role of Crab Traps in Oyster Reef Restoration

Steven O’Connell: Perfluorinated Contaminant Concentrations in Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta): Expanded Spatial and Temporal Trends along the East Coast of the United STates

Katie Olds: TBA

Kolo Rathburn: Transcriptional Profile of the Penaeid Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei to Hypoxia and Hypercapnic Hypoxia

Drew Wham: TBA

Science and Mathematics for Teachers

Sadie Fox: Robotics Curriculum for CE Williams Middle School for Creative and Scientific Arts.

Also, there has been a call for posters for the North Carolina Museum Council/South Carolina Federation of Museum’s Annual Meeting.  The deadline to submit a poster is January 16, 2009.  You can find more details here.

The experiment began with the simple question of how do pollutants influence daily performance of shellfish. Lou and his crew simulated pollutants by exposing crab and shrimp to bacteria and giving stress tests.  Lindy Thibodeaux, a Marine Biology grad student, explains the experiment in greater detail in the video above.