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Raising the bar: Student research takes learning to a new level By Sarah Briggs Jef Knight had dreamed of composing music since he was in junior high. This past summer, the music major finally got his chance. Working under Albion music professor Andrew Bishop, himself an award-winning composer and performer, Knight began with rudimentary themes only a few measures long. As the summer progressed, he developed those musical ideas into several compositions including one for string quartet. “At the beginning of the summer,” he says, “I had never imagined writing for a string quartet, but the theme was so well suited to it that I had to try. So I began writing, and it came along remarkably. Before I knew it, it was essentially finished.” Another piece written for flute and cello, suggesting a “conversation” between a kookaburra and a crocodile, reflects his interest in things Australian. (Knight is now studying “down under” on an offcampus program.) Next spring, he hopes to participate in a concert devoted to student compositions.
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In reading Mark Twain’s novels, English major Anne Starr was puzzled by the fact that, even though the celebrated author was surrounded by strong, independent women throughout his life, such women are a rarity in his books. A notable exception, Starr observes, is the main character in the little-known work, Eve’s Diary. Eve, as Twain depicts her, is an accomplished, attractive and confident woman who “has emotional depth and intellectual superiority over Adam.” Starr’s fascination with this character, and her discovery that almost no other scholarship exists on Twain’s views on gender, prompted her to devote this past summer to research on the author’s portrayals of women in the context of his life and times. Conducted under the guidance of English professor Hal Wyss, her research will likely lead to a senior honors thesis.
Summer 2000 turned out to be memorable in many ways for psychology students Julia Ogg and Kami Marsack, who spent 10 weeks conducting research with Albion professor Jeff Wilson. The hundreds of trials they ran testing the effects of Ginkgo biloba on rats’ memory processes and decision-making led to some impressive results—so impressive in fact that the students wound up as co-authors of an article with Wilson, published in an international neuroscience journal, detailing their findings. However, Wilson thinks that, beyond these immediate successes, the students’ experience will leave a lasting impression: they now will more fully appreciate “the day-to-day experience of uncovering nature’s mysteries.”
Under the guidance of American literature specialist Hal Wyss, English major Anne Starr used her summer research fellowship from Albion’s Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity to delve into novelist Mark Twain’s portrayal of women. Through her research, she says, “I was able to form what I feel is a solid, original theory about Twain.”
As these students have discovered, a college education, above all, should be about pursuing your intellectual passions and learning to think in original ways. While that happens, of course, in classroom discussions, and in exposure to new books and experiences, research may be the best catalyst of all. Recognizing that research can both stimulate and expand learning, Albion, under its Vision, Liberal Arts at Work, has established the new Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (FURSCA).
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