The official poster design by Krysten Farrier, art freshman, for the Celebration of Scholarship, running April 28-30

The official postcard design by Aaron Campbell for the Celebration of Scholarship, running April 28-30

A poster by Krysten Farrier, art freshman, and a postcard design by Aaron Campbell, art junior, were chosen as marketing tools for the Celebration of Scholarship, honoring the research of students and faculty.

The students made their designs as part of a project in their Computers for Artists class, according to Jennifer Yucus, who teaches the class and chaired the committee for the Celebration of Scholarship this year.

“My role was to make sure that the students had all the information that they need and then I acted as the creative director [and] guided them along the process,” Yucus said.

According to Yucus, the committee chose the designs two weeks ago. Yucus said Farrier’s poster design was chosen because the committee members thought it would appeal to students and faculty.

“If you were walking down the hallway and looked over, you would be like ‘Oh, the colors are bright, the topic is interesting, and it was executed nicely,’ ” Yucus said. “So we thought for students and faculty that was great.”

Yucus said Campbell’s postcard design was chosen because the community would associate the mustangs on the postcard with MSU.

“We thought that the mustangs symbolize MSU and to use those mustangs with the galaxy background would meet more of the community demographic because they think MSU—they think Mustangs,” Yucus said.

Yucus said 1,000 postcards will be mailed to community members to invite them to the Celebration of Scholarship.

“We are sending out 1,000 postcards to the community so that community members can come to the event, so that they see what our students are doing, so they have feedback for our students, and we have a concert,” Yucus said.

The Celebration of Scholarship will kick off April 28 with graduate student and faculty presentations, and continue until April 30 with more presentations from undergraduates, and a panel, as well as an award ceremony and a wind ensemble concert.

The post Student artwork chosen to market research forum appeared first on The Wichitan.

The spring 2015 Celebration of Scholarship will kick off April 28 with graduate student and faculty presentations, and continue until April 30 with more presentations from undergraduates, and a panel, as well as an award ceremony and a wind ensemble concert.

The applications for students or faculty to present at the event were due April 6, and applicants should find out if their presentations were approved by April 13.

The presentations can range from posters, oral presentations, or creative activities.

“We will have oral and poster presentations by students who have done research at EURECA or in class or in independent study, anything that they have done,” said Magaly Rincon-Zachary, director of undergraduate research and biology professor.

Although the research and activity forum takes place every semester, the Celebration of Scholarship is special to the spring semester, according to Rincon-Zachary.

The Celebration of Scholarship is dedicated to showcasing the research work of students and faculty.

“The goal is to highlight the students accomplishments and celebrate what they have done,” Rincon-Zachary said.

Faculty and graduate student presentations will be April 28 from 2-6 p.m., panel presentations will be April 29 from 12-4 p.m., and undergraduate presentations will be April 30 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. All presentations will take place in the Clark Student Center.

The Celebration of Scholarship will conclude with an awards ceremony and a concert from the MSU Wind Ensemble, both in Akin Auditorium at 7:30 p.m, April 30. The Celebration of Scholarship is free and open to the entire MSU community.

The post Celebration of Scholarship highlights student, faculty accomplishments appeared first on The Wichitan.

Michael Olaya discusses a three-dimensional printer than can print body parts at the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Forum, April 28, 2016. Photo by Bradley Wilson

As part of the growing undergraduate research program, students and faculty spend months researching new ideas or learning new approaches for old ideas. Along the way, they compete for thousands of dollars in prize money and present their projects at different forums worldwide.

The fifth annual Celebration of Scholarship held in 2016 gave undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty an outlet to showcase their research and was a reflection of the research environment that MSU cultivates in its students.

“Many of the presentations (at the April forum) were not just new pieces of information to the students, but to the disciplines,” Magaly Rincón-Zachary, director of undergraduate research, said. “That’s what research is.” 

The university funds the program annually which exceed more than $200,000 per academic year, including research on the 3-D printing of human organs and other body parts by researchers such as Michael Olaya, a junior in mechanical engineering.

“I have been working on my research all semester, printing around 20 to 30 different organs in the process,” Olaya said.

Olaya has been researching his presentation all semester from McCoy Engineering Hall, making plastic prints of human organs for surgeons and other medical professionals to use for pre-surgical planning.

“We plan to keep working on it after the forum, taking the prints to a local OB/GYN for 3-D ultrasounds and reaching out to the local hospitals. It hasn’t cost anything for us to do this. McCoy hall is filled with 3-D printers and we started purely out of curiosity,” Olaya said.

As part of this spring’s forum, in the corner of the Clark Student Center atrium, five mechanical engineering students stood by their poster presentation: MSU Smart Parking System. As students and faculty stopped to learn about poster number 23, the well-dressed engineers eagerly explained their research, overpowering the fact that they had only received two hours of sleep the night before as a result of putting final touches on the project.

Junior Enaho Atamenwan came up with the idea to create a phone application that will help students find parking spots without them having to drive around for long periods of time, helping students get to class on time. It is available for iPhone and Android and works on devices like computers and iPads. The app will go live as soon as more seniors are assembled.

Atamenwan said if everything works out, the system could be up and running by fall.

Psychology and sociology junior Catherine Stepniak, and accounting and sociology senior Careisha Whyte won first place for the undergraduate best poster presentation from not one, but two departments: Prothro Yeager College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Fain College of Fine Arts for their poster Developing a New Newsletter for Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology.

“We were tasked with figuring out the best way to format a newsletter for the AACS to improve and increase its membership and to communicate effectively with its members,” Stepniak said, of the 46-inch by 36-inch poster.

Whyte said, “Our project was an interdisciplinary applied project. We found the members preferred communication medium and made recommendations to the president on how best to implement it.”

Julio Rivera, former president of the national Council on Undergraduate Research, spoke on the importance of the undergraduate research and how it benefits students.

“It’s students learning about subject matter. It’s students leaning about themselves. It’s students learning new skills,” Rivera said. “Undergraduate research is one of those things that is even better for students, so you grow intellectually, and you grow personally in terms of skills and personal development.”

Pre-med freshman Brittni Coss, who attended the event last semester, said she had never seen the Atrium so packed.

“It was really cool to see my peers evaluating posters seriously versus taking it as a joke or only doing it for extra credit. It made me put more thought into my evaluations and ask more questions to the presenters,” Coss said. “The amount of professionalism in the room is something every student should see. It showed me the true value of research and that if I wanted to start my own project, this university grants me easy access to that opportunity.”

To fund the research, students and faculty get funding from various sources.

“We were funded through the school and EURECA, with some outside funding coming into play. On top of that, the Texas State Comptroller has taken its own interests in maybe funding up to $100,000 to try and extend our research,” Tim Torres, chemistry sophomore, said.

Torres and his research partner, Francisco Ramos Armas, entered their independent study with the help of Charles Watson, assistant professor of biology.

The team obtained samples from Riverbend Nature Center, using a variety of different approaches to find more data on the Monarch butterfly, before its possible extinction in 20 years.

“The amount of data we had to go through was the most difficult part of the study. Each sample we analyzed had around 100 to 150 peaks that we had to go through to see if they were coming out correctly. We ended up having around 25 samples altogether, leaving us with more questions than answers,” Armas, biology junior, said.

The group used a span of a month recording data, spending upwards to 80 hours in the lab day after day.

“If we had all day and night to focus on our project then it might not have taken as much time, but with school and everything else, we ended up being busier than anticipated. We spent days and nights in Bolin,” Torres said.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS

First Bank of Wichita Falls

Foreign Languages of Midwestern State University

Student Affairs and Enrollment Management

The post Undergrads engage in research appeared first on The Wichitan.

Gabriel Jacobs, geosciences graduate student, explains his poster, “A Study in Trilobite Growth and Development,” to University President Suzanne Shipley. Celebration of Scholarship Faculty and Graduate Student Poster and Podium Presentations held at Atrium, Comanche Suites and Wichita Rooms, April 26. Photo by Timothy Jones

BY THE NUMBERS

• Faculty and graduate student podium presentations | 19
• Faculty and graduate student poster presentations | 6
• Undergraduate podium presentations | 37
• Undergraduate poster presentations | 33

FROM PARTICIPANTS

Kenneth Shanks, senior photography and presenter | “I choose to participate because of EURECA and also the monetary benefits. I’m showing this presentation in my senior show so its good practice for me and plus I like to get students’ reactions.”

Jose Martinez, senior mechanical engineering and presenter | “Technically we were made to do it for our senior design project, but when it came down to it it gives us an insight of what the real world is going to be, it’s an experience for sure.”

Hyungmo Yeon, mechanical engineering senior | “We got a lot of support from our two sponsors, basically they helped with a lot of designing for us. I enjoyed the teamwork but mostly the designing of new stuff and making it more simple. It was fun and difficult figuring the biggest problem of listening to what our sponsors were saying and the conflicts from having our minds be different.”

Moiz Tatla, mechanical engineering senior | “I was happy with the outcome of our presentation. We’ve presented it about four times now. We started our project last fall.”

Simon Ospina, economics sophomore | “I decided to participate because I’m really passionate about economics, and I thought this would be very advantageous to my knowledge on this subject. I learned how to do economic research and also new theorems founded in the literature.”

Kalli Root, English junior | “From an acting perspective, the character analysis stuff was (a) really interesting thing to do because the characters change and their behavior changes with each universe.”

Luke Allen, political science and Spanish junior | “I was surprised with how many people came compared to last semester. It’s really nice to see students be more interested and engaging in these activities.”

Jared Sharp, mechanical engineering senior | “This was a course requirement but it gave me experience for my future career when presenting data and doing research. I learned valuable experience from faculty, who taught me how to design projects. Presenting was great, but I wish the evaluators would have been more knowledgeable on the subjects they were covering. I wish they had a vague knowledge on each presentation, because the questions they asked had nothing to do with our subject.”

Reuben Denwe, mechanical engineering senior | “Nigeria is an oil producing country, so a project on how to maximize crude oil production is knowledgeable to the employment sector”

Chiedza Tokonyai, mechanical engineering junior | “This topic was outside of my major, so doing this research has definitely boosted my self-confidence. It was like a practice run for senior design and taught me how to do research.”

Ciera Wolinski, biology senior | “My project is over the resting metabolic rates of squamates. So, those are lizards and snakes. What I did was compile a whole bunch of different data points on their metabolic rates. We are using that not only as a source for other scientist to then compare their results to but we are also looking at developing a new phylogenetic tree based on their metabolic rates. This should be a highly cited paper because so many other biologists can reference their work to the data we’ve collected over all these different reptiles. We have over 700 data points so it encompasses many species.”

Meaghan Rose, biology senior, and Salvator Capotosto, biology senior, present their research on bacterial endophytic diversity during EUREKA on April 27. Photo by Arianna Davis

FROM JUDGES, ORGANIZERS

Jeff Stambaugh, management professor | “I don’t think there’s one most important thing, but I’ll tell you one of the things that jumps out is the communication ability of the poster. Some of the posters are much easier to understand than others, and some of them are more visually pleasing than others. One of the areas where you quickly pick of the differences is how well they’re communicating the message.”

Kathy Zuckweiler, graduate school dean | ”A lot of the poster presentations are very interesting. All six colleges are participating, so there is a huge breadth of topics, which is really neat. It’s good to see what the students are doing for their research topics. The event is absolutely worth attending, I learn something new every time I read posters.”

Charles Watson, biology professor | “I expect them to show some level of being inquisitive, and I just want my students to love what I love which is biology. I try to find students that are excited. I don’t worry about if the students are A students, B students or C students. If they come in with a genuine inquisitive nature I’m going to try to make sure they have the opportunity to do research. I expect my students to be invested and enjoy what they do.”

Chiara Del Vecchio, chemistry junior, presents with partner Dorcas Matuwana, biology senior, on identification of antibiotic activity during EUREKA on April 27. Photo by Arianna Davis

FROM ATTENDEES

Michael Bravenec, sophomore business | “I attended due to extra credit but ended up learning new information about research so it was definitely worth it.”

Krishun Jackson, senior business management | “Our professor said we can have extra credit while we learn about other things like EURECA if we attended these sessions. I could possibly see myself doing something like this if I have a good group because it would be hard alone.”

Johanna Jaimes, sophomore management information systems | “I came for extra credit. I didn’t know much about the celebration of scholarship event, so I get two for one, extra credit, and seeing the poster presentations. I found the poster on intelligent robotics pretty cool.”

Alaska Carrillo Bell, pre-med biology sophomore | “It’s interesting to see how my peers can do these presentations. It was worth attending because it shows me how I can do that too, I can conduct an experiment and do a poster like them.”

Joshua Munoz, mechanical engineering junior | “I thought the presentation was really good. It will be fun to see what I will be doing next year with my peers.”

Clayton Meyers, marketing sophomore | “I came to support a friend and to get a further understanding for remittances [topic of the project he attended]. It was absolutely worth attending. The EURECA presentations are something that a class won’t teach you.”

Christelle Billan, physics sophomore | “It intrigued me in the sense that she was able to bring Theater and Physics (together), something as deep and complex as the multiverse theory. That’s really interesting. And I just wanted to see how they would combine both subjects ,that you believe to be completely different from each other, but are similar in so many ways.”

Natalie McLaurin, exercise physiology sophomore | “The presentations showed a lot of hard work and dedication by the presenters. I learned that not every state has assisted suicide as legal and that was really interesting to learn.”

Lashanda Turenne, nursing junior | “The presentations on sexual attitudes and the impact of pornography interested me the most. It was interesting because I don’t think sex is taken seriously, so I was happy to see the presenters were going to be speaking on the topic to college students that would and could have questions. It’s my second time coming to see the presentations, and they’re always on great topics.”

Samantha Burns, chemistry sophomore | “I  attended for extra credit and guess what I’m glad I came because it has opened my mind to different ideas and I might want to try this next time.”

Afolabi Adereti, mechanical engineering sophomore | “I came to get extra credit for a class, I wanted to finesse my way through it but I got caught up in one of the presentations and I stayed, I am exceptionally glad I came.”

Kenneth Shanks, photography senior | “This is all me. Some of [the pictures] are staged, but most are candid. Obviously the bottles in the corner are staged; the photo of them across the way is candid, from my room. This is how I live.”

Ben Robertson, geology senior | “I didn’t realize it was an art show. I kind just thought it was a pile of trash. But when I actually went and checked it out, it makes a lot of sense. I really like what he was going for.”

Tharusha Wanigasekera, mechanical engineering senior | “My team mate and I are both going into the automobile industry. We both wanted to research that field and we both found a non-Newtonian fluid that can be used in hydraulic systems, damping automobile shock absorbers, and as an actuating system.”

Janith Ambewela, mechanical engineering senior | “It [non-newtonian fluid] works better because its viscosity can be changed according to the magnetic field supplied to it, but regular shock absorbers in use today only have one viscosity. In off road environments, it can work better because we can control the amount of shock absorbed by the fluid by changing the viscosity of the fluid inside the cylinder.”

Samantha Acuna, sports and leisure studies senior | “I’m taking an organizational behavior class and we talked a little about how cultures affect the character within the workspace and our professor said if you’re really interested in the cultural level and people doing research, go to the celebration of scholarship.”

Gabrielle Browning, special education sophomore | “My best friend is one of the presenters, so it’s interesting because I know the background behind the research, like all of the hard work that went into it. It’s cool to see it here today.”

Nicholas Jaramillo, mechanical engineering junior | “I am here for extra credit for all of my engineering classes. I’m in the physics section and I’m looking at what other people in my class are doing. My friend did a project and that’s what I’m looking at right now. It’s about electron scattering so it’s really cool.”

AWARD RECIPIENTS

Best Graduate Student Poster Awards

• Champion: Clayton Reece Burgoon for “Supraspinatous and Infraspinatous Tendon Tears with MRI Arthrography of the Shoulder: A Case Study” | Faculty Mentor: Victoria Sanders
• Runner-Up: Gabriel Jacobs for “A Study in Trilobite Growth and Development: Morphometric Ontogeny of Calyptaulax strasburgensis” | Faculty Mentor: Jesse Carlucci
• Honorable Mention: William Bryan for “Nail-Patella Syndrome (Fong Disease)” | Faculty Mentor: Victoria Sanders

Best Graduate Student Podium Awards

• Champion: Melissa Jean Laussman for “How Deans of Women Changed Academia” | Faculty Mentor: Melissa Nivens
• Runner-Up: Scott Gordon and Steven Kundert for “Collatz Conjecture Verification: A Many-Core Approach” | Faculty Mentor: Eduardo Colmenares-Diaz
• Honorable Mention: Jeanel Georges for “Anolis oculatus and Anolis cristatellus in Dominica: investigating the distribution and impacts of an invasive species on an island endemic” | Faculty Mentor: Charles M. Watson

Best Undergraduate Student Poster Awards

• Champion: Careisha Whyte for “Evaluating the Ethical Awareness of Accounting Students in the Dillard College of Business Administration” | Faculty Mentor: Ronald Young
• Runner-Up: Tamra Woods and Jocelyn Brown for “The Effect of STEAM Units on Pre-service Teachers’ Self-Efficacy” | Faculty Mentor: Dittika Gupta
• Runner-Up: Careisha Whyte and Shirley Hazel for “Acceptance of Legalized Assisted Suicide: Does Terminology Matter?” | Faculty Mentors: Beverly Stiles and Newman Wong

Best Undergraduate Student Podium Award

• Champion: Bethany Russell for “The Effect of Subinhibitory Concentrations of Tetracycline on Non-Plasid-Based Erythromycin Resistance in Escherichia coli” | Faculty Mentors: James Masuoka and Jon Scales
• Runner-Up: Romeo Botelua, Charles Trevor Criddle, Xin Hu, Chase Meyer, and Michael A. Olaya for “Development of Muon Tomography Imaging System” | Faculty Mentor: Yu Guo
• Honorable Mention: Laura Sorge and Francine Baron for “Exploring Students’ Perceived Benefits of Learning Communities…Going Deeper.” | Faculty Mentor: Kym Acuna

The post Students, faculty show off research at Celebration of Scholarship appeared first on The Wichitan.

The Department of Music University Wind Ensemble performed four pieces, closing out the Celebration of Scholarship, Thursday April 27. The 36-member band filled the stage in Akin Auditorium. The band members were dressed in all black, their brass and woodwind instruments making a stark contrast against their clothing. As they sat on stage, focused and ready to begin, they tuned their instruments, prepared to share the music from Fascinating Ribbons. Some pieces were energetic and loud, while others were more mellow, with softer sounds.

“Each year we’ve tried to go into it with a specific, thematic idea of what we’re going to do. Three years ago, the first time we did it, we did concerto. What that means, is collaboration. Celebration of Scholarship is very much about collaboration so for us, collaboration with professional musicians, means concertos,” Matthew Luttrell, associate professor of music and band director, said. “Last year we did a concert that was a mixture of jazz and really vibrant orchestral music. Last night, we played music written primarily by women.”

Beyond the purpose of performing music, is the band’s mission to raise awareness of the world and make people more aware of the world around them.

Gordon Hicken, assistant professor of music and associate director of bands, presents a performance of a new piece for saxophone and percussion at the Celebration of Scholarship Faculty and Graduate Student Poster and Podium Presentations on April 26. Photo by Timothy Jones

“For the next year, all of our concerts are being planned around cultural diversity, gender equality and social justice. Last night was the first time we had really done something of that vein,” Luttrell said. “The first three composers were Joan Tower, the second piece was done by Barbara York and then the third piece was by Julie Giroux. We ended with ‘La Fiesta Mexicana,’ music based primarily from the country of Mexico.”

Luttrell shares a love for both music and the students he instructs.

“I love to perform and I love working with the students. I really love working with them,” Luttrell said. “I thought the Julie Giroux piece ‘One Life Beautiful,’ that was dedicated to Ray Cramer’s daughter, came off extremely well. I thought it was beautifully played. I thought the group did a great job.”

Before the final number, Provost James Johnston announced 12 awards from the 95 projects shown during Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity forum presentations on April 26-April 27. Cash awards were also presented to three i.d.e.a MSU finalists. Two presenters won two different awards, taking home four, for their presentations.  Careisha Whyte, accounting and sociology senior, was one of those students. She and her research partner, Shirley Hazel conducted research over the terminology of legal assisted suicide. Whyte also conducted research over the ethical awareness of accounting students. She expressed gratitude for her research experiences and would recommend research to other students.

“I would encourage any student to participate in undergraduate research, particularly over a topic of interest to them, because it causes students to make inquiries and find answer those those questions, backed up by sound research that can blow their minds if they allow it to,” Whyte said. “The reason I did my projects is because I am passionate about each one.”

Mechanical engineering and physics senior, Michael Olaya, also won two awards for two of his projects, one for engineering and one first-place, $2,000 cash prize, for “Colony Robotics” for i.d.e.aMSU.

“Physics and mechanical engineering has forced me to recognize everything is a system.  We have to look at the entire system,” Olaya said. “That’s why I’m developing these robotic systems, because it allows us to view the planet for what it really is, which is one large, living organism. Our city is one large, living organism. Our campus is one large, living organism, and we have to view it as such.”

Olaya also appreciated his research experiences and said he would encourage fellow students to engage in research, while focusing on activity and working to learn a solution, being how a person learns.

“We have this notion that intelligence is a static noun, but really it’s a verb. It’s something that you do, it’s not something that you are,” Olaya said. “Research is a really good forcing function to make you become intelligent.”

The post Wind ensemble performance, Fascinating Ribbons, wraps up Celebration of Scholarship appeared first on The Wichitan.

[Editor’s note: Bill Ash originally delivered this talk at the opening to the Celebration of Scholarship, April 25.]

I’ll start this off by commenting on just how strange this is for me. If you had asked me four or five years ago where or what I would be doing today, I can assure you, this would not be it. I actually had some difficulty even getting accepted to MSU based on my previous academic record. It seems like only yesterday, but yet I know that I’m a much different person today than when I first started here. And not only because now I’ve been to Walmart, or am accustomed to nine hour car rides whenever I’m traveling to a different part of the state, or I finally feel comfortable pronouncing heteroscedasticity, but because of the relationships that I’ve made at MSU and the skills I’ve learned through undergraduate research.

Bill Ash, accounting senior, placed first in men’s Cat A at the Vuelta del Viento two-day Conference Championship Event and Fixed-Gear Criterion race at Midwestern State University April 21, 2018. Photo by Bradley Wilson

And even now, picking classes for my final semester as I plan to graduate in the fall and move on from this place, feels a bit surreal. College was never really something I had given much thought or consideration toward. And now here I am giving a talk about my experiences with undergraduate research, and how it has totally changed my life.

As a non-traditional student, I first came to MSU after being given the opportunity to race on the cycling team. I started as a general business major, switched to accounting, and then later added finance. I remember finishing my first semester feeling proud, like I’d made the right decision to return to school and found I actually enjoyed it quite well wanting to make the most of my time here.

My first exposure to Enhancing Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities came soon after while I was taking Pablo Garcia-Fuentes’ microeconomics class in the fall of 2016. He made some kind of general announcement to everyone in class describing what EURECA was and I thought it sounded kind of interesting. So I met with him after class and he told me about how he was working on this project about remittances, poverty, and human capital, and how he could really use some help. At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about but I thought, I’m pretty bad at writing, and I’m probably even worse at public speaking — I don’t know if I’m to much better at that now but I’m still trying — but why don’t I give this a shot and see if I can work on those things. And just like that,Garcia-Fuentes took me under his wing and put me to work. With no prior knowledge or experience, he took the time to sit with me and talk about why remittances were worth researching and what kind of effect they could have on people’s lives and it was really an eye opening experience. There’s a lot that we learn in class and there are some really amazing professors at the University, but getting to learn by doing and applying what is being taught toward real world problems and reading about how other people’s research is making meaningful improvements on a global scale was truly remarkable.

When you’re going through pages and pages of excel data, and you stop and think of each data point as a person or something that exists in the world somewhere rather than just a figure in a trend, you get to have a different learning experience. Those early days of are some of my favorite memories looking back now. Garcia provided me with some additional materials to read, and we got to work on preparing two presentations that I delivered at the undergraduate research forum that fall.

Bill Ash spoke about the benefits of undergraduate research at the kick off dinner for the undergraduate research forum in Sikes Lake Center on April 26, 2018. Photo by Bradley Wilson

At the time I was presenting I was nervous, scared I didn’t know what I was talking about, and I was terrified of failing. But, throughout the whole process, I was learning and it was a great experience. I didn’t faint, I was able to answer questions, and it was the first major presentation I had ever given in front of a group of people. All I had to do was continue showing up and people within the program were there to support me and provide me with the tools and expertise I needed to succeed. It really opened my mind to what college really was, why it is so important, and what I was capable of as a student if I continued to apply myself.

Up until that point I had a fairly linear framework to how college worked — pick a major, show up to class, take some exams repeat until graduation, get a job — but it was being a part of EURECA that not only inspired me to try and do more, but really exposed me to why going to grad school was a thing people did, or what it really meant to have a phd. It may seem fairly obvious to most people in this room but I had no idea what these things really meant up until this point or what the purpose of academia was in general. It was here that I realized college was more than just a stepping stone till employment, but a process of learning and growing as an individual and figuring out what else is out there.

Being a part of EURECA, I’ve been able to learn valuable skills and have had the opportunity to take part in different events and conferences. After my first presentation at the university’s forum, I continued to work with Garcia where we looked to expand on some of his original ideas, tweak variables, and look for new data sets. That next semester we were able to move beyond MSU and present at the Economic Scholars Program hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in the spring of 2016. This was the first time students from MSU had been accepted to present research at the conference. We were invited back to present again last year, and more recently I was invited to sit on their peer review board as apart of their selection committee. We now bring a whole school bus of students to take part in the event.

Since starting at Midwestern State University, I have found my most rewarding experience to be working with Garcia-Fuentes. The critical thinking, determination and time management required to perform good research is something I will carry with me well into the future. Now after almost three years of collaboration and many iterations of our original paper, we hope to submit for publication over the summer. Experiences like this would not be possible without EURECA, and for that I’m truly grateful.

PRODUCED THANKS TO OUR ADVERTISERS
First Bank
Student Affairs
Frank & Joe’s Coffee House
American National Bank and Trust
Sports Clips
Balance Studio

Gallery|20 Photos

Francisco Martinez

Garrison Horton, English senior, presents his project during the Undergraduate Research Endeavors and Creative Activity Forum Kickoff at Clark Student Center on Thursday, April 26, 2018. Photo by Francisco Martinez