Trailblazers

Pioneering Projects in Honors Research

BY AMELIA MARKEY

If you’ve never attempted a research project of your own, you might have only a vague idea of just how daunting it can be. Often, it’s a bit like blazing a trail through the forest: first, you’ll set out on paths that others have trod before you; but eventually, you must break loose and hack your way through uncharted underbrush. Armed with nothing but raw data, others’ research and your own conviction, you must pack to be ready for anything – because no matter how well you prepare, there’s no way to pinpoint exactly where you’ll end up.

By their fourth year, students enrolled in the Messiah College Honors Program are given the chance to take their first steps into the field of independent research. Not every student takes that chance – some may opt for a semester-long, honors-level course instead, which fulfills the same requirement to graduate. Those who choose the project option know they’re in for twice the time commitment, but will have the freedom to turn any of their passions into real-life projects.

However, before anyone takes off into the forest of questions, databases and citations, they’ll need to find exactly which passion will direct their course.

For senior Emily Falkenstein, the honors project is a chance to reconcile her economics major with her theatre minor. In order to bridge both her passions, she settled on a single question: Why does a theatregoer choose one Broadway show over another?

“Because I keep up with the Broadway theatre world,” Falkenstein said. “I’ve noticed recent trends with the increasing popularity of shows based on movies or including music by a famous recording artist. I wondered why this shift was occurring and if it was actually working...I discovered that I could use economic tools to try to answer this question.”

I rarely had the final destination mapped out.

Like Falkenstein, other students use the honors project to dig deep into their own unique curiosities, which makes for a vast and varied range of projects. Take film major Keara Kobzowicz’s driving question, for example: How should the church navigate its reputation for outward perfection, when inwardly it’s filled with fallible sinners? She plans to address that tension in her film project “Unstained Glass,” a collage of interviews and stories from local pastors.

Or consider the question motivating Alexa Glatfelter: What does a wellness program look like that cares for your mind, body and soul? As an applied health science major, she has the right background to treat the first two; but it’s her Christian faith that enables her to care for the latter. When it came to constructing such a program, Glatfelter acknowledges it took some wandering and plenty of trust.

“I rarely had the final destination mapped out clearly, and still don’t,” Glatfelter said. “But I’ve seen the Lord guiding my training, my learning, my opportunities and giving me ideas to pursue this field in a way that will help people the most.”

What does a wellness program look like that cares for your mind, body and soul? Sessions from Glatfelter's honors project J-term class,"Thrive," featured body weight exercise, reflective journaling, and even introductory kickboxing!

Photography by Amelia Markey

Pioneering your own research project is sure to come with challenges. Sometimes, your straightforward trail of questions opens up to a clearing with 20 different trailheads, each with branches and rabbit holes of their own. At this point you must, like senior history major Ben Baddorf, choose only one trail to go down. Baddorf found his biggest challenge has been narrowing down all the possible leads generated by his original question: How did the first Irish-American immigrants come to be accepted as simply Americans?

Between digging through firsthand accounts, poring over archived documents, and taking cues from books like Noel Ignatiev’s “How the Irish Became White,” he’s amounted quite the mountain of information to sift through – not to mention entire intersecting discussions like race, relative whiteness and colonialism.

For others, the biggest struggle is that progress is simply hard to predict. Courtney Herr, a senior double-major in biochemistry and Spanish, is completing her honors project by tagging on to a research project two years in the making.

“Since this is a medicinal chemistry project,” Herr said, “My research has a clear, direct objective: Creating a potential treatment for Type 2 diabetes and obesity.”

But figuring out the right combination of compounds is anything but obvious, short of rigorous testing and dedicated documentation.

Understanding how compounds react with one another is like a big puzzle.

Originally started by her project advisor, Dr. Anne Reeve, the research has moved on to the lab-intensive phase of “method development,” which calls for plenty of trial and error — sometimes heavy on the error. For example, a compound may “aggregate,” or clump up, which blocks many helpful, as well as harmful enzymes, so it won’t make for a successful drug. In that case, all that’s left to do is try again.

But the research isn’t without its successes or its joys.

“Understanding how compounds react with one another is like a big puzzle, and I always found it fascinating,” Herr said. “It’s also really exciting to make a compound that no one else has ever made before!”

Herr displays a promising test sample. She admits she's fortunate to have these facilities and opportunities: "Most people wouldn't ever get to do [research like this] in undergrad."

Photography by Amelia Markey

Finally reaching the summit of a project looks different for almost every student. The final form of Falkenstein’s Broadway analysis project will be a culminating presentation, while her “reach” goal is to eventually get her findings published. For Herr and her research in the lab, the end looks less like a finish line and more like a passing of the baton – once she graduates in May, future students will be able to pick up where she left off, refining the compound still further. Glatfelter, meanwhile, has turned her focus on mind, body and soul health into a semester-long wellness class, which she offered again over three weeks this past J-Term.

As these students continue on their journey, what lies just up ahead on the trail may still be foggy. But if they ever tire, or reach a dead end, or if their supplies of motivation happen to run low, the remedy might be simple. They might stop to catch their breath and admire the view. They might take a moment to trace everything that brought them to where they are now. Or they might — briefly, and perhaps with surprise — glance back and see just how far they’ve already come.