Solar powered water purification

Zhe Zhang ’15 set out to learn about solar-powered water purification. But his summer research project has taught him at least as much about determination and hard work.

He has spent much of his summer trying to make one chemical reaction happen, which he originally assumed would take only a couple of days. But he takes that in stride. “It’s always fun to try different things and to finally get a solution,” he said. “I just don’t want to fail.”

Zhang has long had an interest in ways of using chemical reactions to purify water. Considering the world’s demand for potable water as well as the potential for energy shortages in the future, he thought developing a sun-powered water purification system would be important. Zhang was particularly interested in titanium dioxide, a semiconductor that is known to purify water when it is exposed to sunlight.

If only that process worked quickly.

“The process is not new, but it’s not efficient enough to be practical,” said Bill Bare, a Randolph chemistry professor advising Zhang on this research. “We’re hoping to make it a little more practical.”

Sunlight causes chemical reactions that increase energy in titanium dioxide atoms, causing the semiconductor to break down organic compounds. But it only absorbs ultraviolet light, meaning much of the light that hits it has no effect.

Bare and Zhang suggested that binding a luminescent compound called ruthenium to titanium dioxide could help increase the spectrum of light that can interact with the material. They designed an experiment to test this. Zhang began the summer by measuring the rates at which titanium dioxide would purify water on its own. But he hit a roadblock when he tried to attach the ruthenium to the semiconductor. The molecules that would make the binding possible were not connecting.

Zhang and Bare experimented with the problem for several weeks. Finally, two weeks ago they made the chemicals bind by changing the acidity of the solution, although the process needs more testing to confirm the success. Zhang looked back at the detour as an effective learning opportunity that helped him understand how to solve problems in original research.

“It’s both a process of learning and researching,” he said. “In the lab, the professor knows everything and can answer all the questions. But in research, there may be a topic that the professor is not very familiar with, and you have to research together.”

Bare added that this is part of the purpose of fostering research opportunities for students who may spend much of their lives solving research problems. “In a research project, we don’t know what’s going to work and what isn’t,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, we have to put our heads together and find out why.”

Student examines links between social media use and narcissism

Recent psychological research has shown links between Facebook usage and narcissism—a personality trait characterized by an inflated sense of importance, a constant quest of admiration from others, and a lack of empathy. What does that mean about the millions of people who check Facebook daily?

Penny Trieu ’15 wants to find out. She is using her summer research project to study the links between activity on the social network and narcissism. Particularly, she wants to find out whether engaging in different activities on Facebook in different affects a user’s personality.

Trieu said that scientists have tracked an increase in narcissism over the past 40 years. The increase began after a period of “positive psychology” that focused on self-esteem. “The theory was that if you have a high self-esteem, everything will work out well for you,” she said. “Parents and schools started to work on ways of raising kids that builds self-esteem, regardless of the accomplishments of the children.”

Those attempts, however, can lead to negative repercussions related to narcissism. For example, people who are accustomed to receiving a reward regardless of their performance might not know how to handle a minor failure. “It’s healthy to accept that, rather than inflate self-esteem by saying everybody wins,” Trieu said.

Social media may have magnified the effects for self-esteem among some users. Trieu started wondering about that as she saw many people posting multiple self-portraits and talking openly about their accomplishments and other good things about their lives. She then read scientific studies about links between Facebook and self-esteem and started formulating ideas for her own project.

This summer, Trieu has read many research studies about links between Facebook and narcissism. She has worked with project advisor, Beth Schwartz, the Catherine E. & William E. Thoresen Chair in Social Sciences and assistant dean of the College, about those studies to glean ideas for an original research project.

Trieu plans to have participants use Facebook in different ways. Some would share photos and information about themselves. Others would use the network to post photos and talk about other people. She will have each group participate in an activity to help gauge narcissism.

Trieu and Schwartz believe that focusing Facebook use on interacting with others might decrease traits of narcissism. “Research in the past has shown that connection to others leads to lower levels of aggression and narcissism,” Schwartz said. “It could be that it’s not going on Facebook, but it’s what you’re doing on Facebook that leads to narcissism.”

Trieu plans to begin her own research on the topic sometime this fall and continue in the spring.

Student explores more efficient soil remediation options

This summer, Hannah Edwards ’16 is searching for a better way to remove toxins from soil.

She started her summer research by contaminating several containers of soil with lead, an element that is known to cause developmental defects, especially in younger people. Then she started experimenting with plants to see which would best remove through a process called phytoremediation.

“We’re trying to show that phytoremediation is an economically viable option for brownfields and vacant lots in general, but especially in Lynchburg,” she said.

Her quest for a better way to clean soil started during her first year at Randolph when John Abell, an economics professor, took some of his students to visit Lynchburg Grows, an urban farm and nonprofit in Lynchburg. The farm is operated in greenhouses on a former brownfield site that was remediated by removing a significant amount of soil and bringing new soil in.

“There has to be a better way,” Edwards thought.

There is—phytoremediation is an effective way to cleanse soil, and Randolph students and professors have experimented successfully with the process before. However, as Edwards learned more about phytoremediation, she saw a common problem: the plant that is best at removing lead is a type of corn that is not native to Virginia and requires a lot of water to grow.

This led Edwards to propose a project for the Summer Research Program. She wrote her own research proposal and asked professors to advise her on the project this summer. Sarah Sojka, an environmental studies and physics professor, and Kristin Bliss, a biology professor, agreed to help.

Edwards faced some roadblocks in her research. For example, some of the plants she was growing for the tests died. However, she did get a strong population of ragweed for the tests.

She planted the ragweed, as well as corn, in several containers of soil that had various amounts of lead. This week, she harvested the grown plants, dried them, and began processing them with nitric acid to determine the lead content.

Finding a native species that can pull lead from soil but requires less water to grow would help make phytoremediation more feasible, and even economically beneficial. “If you can’t show people that a plan is going to make them money, it doesn’t matter how good it is for the environment, because they’re not going to see it as the best option for them right now,” she said. “You have to be able to give them hard figures.”

Edwards plans to incorporate her findings into a report on how phytoremediation can be used effectively in Lynchburg.

Teaching institute and science camp continue education research

Three  Randolph students and three Randolph professors are spending this week with local teachers and children at the Jubliee Family Development Center in Lynchburg.

Thao Nguyen ’17 helps a participant in the science summer
camp at the Jubilee Family Development examine a flower.

The annual science camp at Jubilee is part of an ongoing research project that aims to improve science education. Randolph has hosted the camp for at least 10 years as a way to examine how hands-on, experiment-based science lessons impact the way teachers and children think about science.

The camp is part of the 2014 Teacher Institute, which is a special program for K-8 teachers in Campbell, Bedford, and Amherst County Schools, Lynchburg City Schools, and New Vistas School. The institute, funded through a grant from the State Council of Higher Education, trains elementary and middle school teachers to better teach science with an emphasis on using hands-on and inquiry based methods. Randolph is in its sixth year of offering the institute, and last week, more than 60 local teachers participated in this year’s program, “Despicable Me—Getting Your Minions Interested in Science and Math.” Teachers selected for the institute received a stipend, recertification points, and equipment.

Several of the institute’s participants are joining the Randolph students and professors at Jubilee this week. While the local teachers put the lessons they learned from the institute into action, the Randolph professors and students continue their ongoing research by observing the teachers and the children.

Hart Gillespie ’15 leads a game of science-themed BINGO.

“There are some major problems in science education that our research project addresses,” said Hart Gillespie ’15, a student helping with the project this year. “One is the phenomenon that students lose interest in math and science as they get older and as they progress through school. In general, the Jubilee science camp and the institute have been shown to improve the perceptions of students towards science.”

In addition to helping operate the teaching institute and science camp, the Randolph students help contribute to resources that will allow more teachers to implement interactive science lessons.

Gillespie, a physics major, has been editing lesson plans for The New Science Teacher, a web page that disseminates information about hands-on approaches to teaching science and math. Shaun Chopp ’15, who is majoring in biology, has been editing videos from last year’s Jubilee camp so teachers can watch the experiments for lesson ideas. He also is recording experiments during this week’s camp. Thao Nguyen ’17, majoring in global studies, has been doing a literature review to find sources to be cited in a paper being written by the Randolph professors.

They each have different perspectives that allow them to contribute to the project in unique ways. “It takes everyone's skill sets and applies them in different ways,” Chopp said. “It’s been a pretty fulfilling project in that sense.”

Nguyen, who comes from Vietnam, said it has been interesting to see how science education is done in the United States. “I think the project will help to promote active learning and help teachers to make science and math more fun,” she said.

Peter Sheldon, a physics professor and director of the Center for Student Research, Peggy Schimmoeller, an education professor, and Amanda Rumore, director of the Summer Research Program, are the Randolph professors who oversee the project.

Randolph students selected for the Davenport Leadership Program will also volunteer at the camp on Friday.

Student research zeroes in on motivations and obstacles for volunteers

Abigail Smith ’15 hopes her Summer Research project will help more young adults to spend time serving others in their communities.

She is researching the factors that influence the decisions of Randolph College students to volunteer—or not volunteer.

Abigail Smith ’15 interviews Pujan Shrestha ’15 about his thoughts on volunteering.

“It’s a part of their life that hasn't been explored,” Smith said.

When she took a class on research methods taught by sociology professor Danielle Currier, she had to design a research experiment. She took interest in volunteerism because of her own experiences with volunteering when she was growing up in Jamaica.

As she worked on that project, she learned that there was not much published research on the motivations behind volunteering. She asked Currier to advise her for the project during the Summer Research Program.

Currier was not planning to get involved in the Summer Research Program, but Smith’s request changed her mind. “One of the best ways to change things on a micro level is by volunteering,” she said. “I wanted to know how we could help more students here want to do it.”

In the spring, they prepared a survey about volunteerism and had 91 students complete the survey. This summer, they are conducting interviews with other students who are on campus.

To determine which factors are most influential in volunteering decisions, they will watch for correlations and patterns in the responses of both the survey and the interviews.

I

n addition to asking about motivations for volunteering, they also are finding out about the barriers that stop some students from doing service. For example, last week they interviewed a student who pointed out that when he does have time that he could volunteer, he does not always have access to transportation to go somewhere.

This summer’s work will be a pilot study and the basis for further research in the fall. Smith plans to involve students from other colleges, too. The project might result in her senior paper, and she thinks she may continue the research in graduate school.

She enjoys getting to apply the concepts that she has explored in the classroom setting. “This has given me a chance to use all that I have done, putting what I've learned to the true test,” she said.

Evolution, psychology, and physical attraction

Open up almost any magazine aimed at teenagers and young adults, and you can find numerous articles about how to be attractive, either through the way one dresses, acts, or talks.

Two Randolph students are working on scientific research into the topic of attractiveness. But their work is designed to lead not to more dating advice, but to an increased understanding of how concepts of attractiveness have evolved.

Sandeep Poudyal ’16 became interested in the topic in an evolutionary psychology class in which he learned that there have been many evolutionary explanations for heterosexual physical attraction, but there are fewer explanations on homosexual attraction. An idea for a research project began brewing.

“I thought it would be fun to explore some more stuff about heterosexual attraction, and find some new information on homosexual attraction,” he said. He proposed a summer research project with Dennis Goff, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Psychology. He also invited Lauren Mason ’16, who wanted research experience to help prepare her for graduate school.

Goff explained that many aspects of physical attraction can be explained by the evolutionary impulse to reproduce. Women evolved to seek strong mates who would be interested in supporting and protecting children, while men have an evolved attraction toward characteristics that signal fertility.

The group’s goal is to design an experiment that would gauge the influence of various characteristics on physical attraction. For the past few weeks, they have been reading articles to get ideas. “We’ve been doing a literature review and looking at possible studies to replicate,” Mason said. They plan to look at how facial characteristics, voice, and personal traits such as humor or intelligence affect attraction.

They will measure the physical attraction associated with those characteristics by administering questionnaires that people will complete. For example, they might play two voices and ask participants which one is more attractive, or they show a picture and ask the participants to rate the face for attraction.

Poudyal said the group plans to administer the survey to a few people this summer to collect pilot data. This will set the stage for more in-depth research with more participants in the fall. The same survey would be administered to homosexual and heterosexual participants to yield a broader scale of data.

The students have enjoyed the summer research, especially the ability to work closely with a professor who helps them develop ideas. “You don’t have to compete with anyone else for the personal attention that you very much want from a professor,” Poudyal said.

He added that the project has helped him confirm his plans to continue researching and earn a Ph.D. after college. “I definitely know that this is what I want to do in the future,” he said. “That is why I decided I want to do research this summer. You learn so much that you didn’t know anything about in the beginning.

“It’s a challenge, but it’s fun.”

"The Play's the Thing" in this Summer Research project

When Grace Gardiner ’15 puts pen to paper, she usually writes poetry that focuses on an image. But when English professor Gary Dop asked if she would like to write plays with him and another experienced playwright this summer, she jumped at the opportunity.

Gardiner is working on several plays for a Randolph College Summer Research Program project titled “The Play’s the Thing: A Communal Creative Jaunt through Dramatic Structure.” She and Dop began the summer by examining the dramatic structure in existing plays, then they set out to craft their own.

When Dop was interviewing for a position on the faculty, he taught a practice class on the opening image of a play. “That stuck with me,” Gardiner said.

Dop and Gardiner are meeting regularly with Jim Peterson, a Randolph English professor who retired last year, to read and discuss the plays that they are writing.

Gardiner’s play is about a college student who is accused of rape but has no idea whether he is guilty because he had blacked out on the night of the alleged assault. The play portrays him searching his soul and wondering whether he really is capable of harming someone. At the end of the play, the audience may have opinions, but not a definite answer, about his guilt or innocence. “It’s more about his journey,” Gardiner said.

Dop said handling the question in this way requires mastery of complex storytelling, and Gardiner is doing it well.  “We don’t know how to feel about the protagonist. He is, at moments, an unlikeable character, and that makes the journey more interesting to watch,” he said. “We’re wrestling with his guilt or innocence as well.”

Dop described the play he is writing this summer as a “postmodern magical realist surrealist absurdist play” as well as an over-the-top comedy that tells the story of a character looking for a job. “It’s certainly a non-traditional kind of drama,” he said. “I’ve played with conventions in some of my scripts, but never this much.”

Gardiner said the project has helped her expand her knowledge of how to structure and tell a story. “In a play, you can’t just take a step back and describe an image. It focuses on the dialogue and the characters’ actions,” she said. “That has been added to my arsenal of writing skills.”

Later this summer, they will send their plays to the National Playwright Center for critical feedback. They also will participate in a high school summer playwriting class that Dop has taught for a couple of years. Gardiner also hopes to organize a reading so people can experience a small performance of her play.

Students begin summer research projects

Students and professors are kicking off the 15th year of the Randolph College Summer Research Program this week.

More than 20 students will spend the next eight weeks working on projects as diverse as improving water purification, writing plays, analyzing the connection between Facebook and self-esteem, and exploring the possibility of distributing unused food to people in need.

“It is an exciting time to see students take on their own independent research projects under the careful guidance of their faculty mentors,” said Amanda Rumore, director of the Summer Research Program. “For some, this is their first taste of research in their field, and for others this is a continuation of a larger project. Either way, the program always proves to be a fruitful learning experience for its participants.”

The students and their faculty mentors met over lunch Monday to meet each other and introduce their respective projects. Throughout the program, they will attend weekly seminars to help them learn more about various kinds of research. Speakers include faculty and two alumnae.

The Summer Research Program was founded in 2000 with a grant from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund. It helps students learn skills in research, critical thinking, data analysis, problem solving, and communication.

Summer Research project plays in film festival this weekend

This weekend, independent film lovers in Oregon will watch a film made at Randolph College.

Beholder, which was created as part of the Randolph College Summer Research Program this year, was accepted in the Mt. Hood Independent Film Festival in Hood River, Oregon. Beholder will be screened at 10 a.m. Saturday, November 9.

“Being accepted to the Mt. Hood Film Festival was both incredibly exciting and validating,” said Ashley Peisher ’15, one of the students who worked on the film. “It’s easy to fall in love with something you pour your time and abilities into, so it was fantastic to hear that it was valued by others on such a level. It felt like we had done the message justice.”

Beholder tells the story of a man who carries his ailing father into the mountains in hopes that his father will learn to see the beauty in the world. Jim Peterson, a Randolph English professor who retired this year, wrote it as a play. Peisher worked with Sonja Cirilo ’15, former Randolph theatre professor Mace Archer, Randolph videographer Skip Wallace, and others to turn the play into a short film. They recorded it on a nearby mountainside in June.

As part of the Summer Research Program, they explored the techniques used in adapting a play for the screen. The experience helped the students learn about everything from storyboarding to post-production editing. “I’ve tried to branch out as much as I can within our theatre department, so it was a truly beautiful experience to dip my toes into film,” Peisher said. “It has given me a new perspective on the difference between the two crafts.”

Independent film festival selects film produced in Summer Research

A film created by students, faculty, and staff in the Randolph College Summer Research Program has been accepted into the Mt. Hood Independent Film Festival.

The Hood River, Oregon, festival will screen Beholder on Saturday, November 9.

Beholder was written by Jim Peterson, a Randolph English professor who retired this year. Ashley Peisher ’15 and Sonja Cirilo ’15 worked with Mace Archer, who was a Randolph theatre professor, and Skip Wallace, a videographer for the College, this summer to turn it into a film.

Students present research at regional conference

Eighteen Randolph College students presented research at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS) this weekend.

They presented talks and posters on a variety of topics including the impact that Supreme Court language has on political discourse, the ability to kill deadly bacteria in compost using another form of bacteria, and the effectiveness of using cell phones to conduct inertial navigation.

“Research is an important part of a student’s education at Randolph College, and an essential part of research is making a contribution to an academic discipline,” said Peter Sheldon, director of the Randolph College Center for Student Research. “We enable our students to do that by giving them opportunities to present the results of their research at regional and national conferences. MARCUS is an excellent opportunity for students to hone their presentation skills and share the research that they are doing.”

Presenting students included Si Thu Aung ’16, Elizabeth Delery ’14, Meron Demeke ’15, Steve Dinh ’16, Connor Dye ’15, Sydney Henson ’14, Nam Hoang ’15, Jim Kwon ’14, Rebekah Leo ’15, Katherine Lesnak ’15, Kristina Marinak ’14, Kavya Pradhan ’14, Sergio Rodriguez ’14, Timothy Slesinger ’14, Sarah Terlizzi ’15, Alex Tran ’15, Penny Trieu ’15, and Tsubasa Watanabe ’14.

Most of the student research was conducted as part of the Summer Research Program, and one project was funded by the Randolph Innovative Student Experience, a program that makes grants available for students’ independent research and creative works.

Randolph will participate in College Colors Day

Get ready to don your black and yellow to show everyone your pride in graduating from Randolph College or Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

August 30 is College Colors Day, “an annual celebration dedicated to promoting the traditions and spirit that make the college experience great by encouraging people across America to wear apparel of their favorite college or university throughout the day.” College Colors Day has been organized since 2005, and many organizations and colleges encourage participation.

The College not only wants you to participate, but we also want you to show off that school pride. On August 30, snap a picture of yourself wearing black and yellow at work, at your current school, at the pool or the park, or wherever you happen to be. Then share your photo on the Randolph College Facebook page.

We would also love for you to join Wanda WildCat and the whole College community at City Stadium that evening for Randolph College Night with the Lynchburg Hillcats. Your Randolph gear will get you into the baseball game for a discounted $3. Don’t miss the first pitch thrown by Randolph President Bradley W. Bateman, the National Anthem performed by Touch of Harmony, and lots of other fun activities with the Randolph community.

Students continue studying inertial navigation

Tim Slesinger ’14 continued research this summer to find a way to turn one of the most common electronic devices into a powerful navigational tool.

Last summer, he began working with Peter Sheldon, a Randolph physics professor, to find a way to use smartphones and other common electronic devices for inertial navigation, a process which tracks an object’s speed, direction, location, and orientation using only physical forces generated by the motion rather than outside sources such as GPS satellites. They used an iPod Touch to record accelerometer data while riding roller coasters, and then Slesinger worked with that data to try extrapolating the roller coaster’s route.

This summer, Alex Tran ’15 joined the project. They focused on more basic experiments to determine how they can most accurately record and analyze accelerometer information. Most of their experiments involved a one-dimensional motion created by pushing a wheeled cart along a short track.

“We do it over and over again so we can take more data,” Tran said. “The data is very complex. We have to get rid of the noise and estimate the position as best as we can.”

The students used several devices to push on the cart and record accelerometer data so they could see what type of accelerometer was most accurate. “We noticed the accelerometer on the fourth-generation iPod Touch is much better than on the second generation,” Slesinger said. Both recorded data with less noise—which could be caused by magnets or external vibrations—than a professional grade accelerometer. A Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone had the best accelerometer of all the devices they tested.

If the research team comes up with a reliable way to do inertial navigation with these more affordable devices, it would open up more possibilities for physics teachers to do advanced experiments with their students without breaking the bank.

They also recorded video of each experiment this summer, allowing them to verify whether the cart was traveling at the same speeds that their calculations indicated, and they explored how to incorporate data from the devices’ gyroscopes.

The one-dimensional test is less exciting than a roller coaster, but Slesinger said it will allow him and Tran to perfect the method of processing the accelerometer readings. Then a three-dimensional map would be more attainable. “If we get a perfect, ideal program for the one-dimensional navigation, it will be miles easier to go into the complexity of a three dimension system,” he said.

Summer Research students study courts' influence on civil rights discourse

As the Supreme Court of the United States has announced decisions on several high-profile cases this week, many people have been reading their judicial rulings and scouring the Internet for articles about the cases and the issues they addressed.

That is what this entire summer has been like for Penny Trieu ’15 and Connor Dye ’15, who are helping Vincent Vecera, a Randolph political science professor, continue research on the way judicial decisions affect public discourse by declaring civil rights.

People on either side of an issue might start their discussions based on the prudence of the policies they support. But if a court issues a decision that declares a civil right, the argument changes, he said. “Once you’ve taken the argument to the rights level, you have to respond with a rights argument,” he said. “With rights arguments, you can’t negotiate.”

But proving that idea requires studying the way public discourse shifts after a court renders a decision that defines a civil right.

Trieu and Dye each approached Vecera to ask about opportunities with Randolph’s Summer Research program. He asked them to take a part in his ongoing research by looking at court decisions on two topics. Trieu studied several state court decisions that concluded that individuals have a right to same-sex marriage. Dye explored Supreme Court decisions related to rights of gun ownership.

The students found news and opinion articles on the topics of same-sex marriage or gun control before and after the court cases. They classified each argument as being based on civil rights or based on other ideas.

They only recently amassed enough data to begin detailed analysis, but Trieu said there did seem to be a shift towards rights-based arguments about same-sex marriage after court rulings affirm such rights. (Although the Supreme Court issued two rulings related to same-sex marriage laws this week, they will not be incorporated into Trieu’s research because they did not declare a constitutional right to marriage.)

Dye said he saw similar patterns in arguments about gun control and second amendment rights. Other events tend to also impact the discourse, but only for a limited time. “Whenever there is a big tragedy, there will be a lot more arguments about regulating gun ownership for mentally ill people,” Dye said. “Then they turn off to another argument, like the rights argument.”

This summer has helped Trieu and Dye learn a lot about judicial rulings and public policy, but it also has taught them patience with the sometimes tedious art of research, as they each had to read hundreds of articles. Vecera assures them that the effort is worth the reward of approaching and answering important questions.

“The things that make research worthwhile aren’t necessarily found in the day-to-day action of it,” he said. “You feel them at the beginning and the end.”

Student Center is strengthening community on campus, Summer Research study shows

Randolph’s new Student Center buzzed with activity late into the night after an opening ceremony earlier this year. Students enjoyed food from the Skeller; socialized in the new commons area; played ping pong, pool, and video games; tried out a new dance floor; and exercised on state-of-the art fitness equipment overlooking the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains.

Amidst all of this excitement, Tsubasa Watanabe ’14 looked around and saw a research opportunity.

Tsuabasa Watanabe ’14 focused her independent study and a Summer Research project on Randolph's Student Center.

Watanbe, a sociology major, frequently ponders questions about how society functions and how people integrate with each other, particularly in the Randolph College community. As the $6 million Student Center renovation drew to a close, she proposed an independent study and Summer Research project that would examine the way the center impacts campus life.

“I thought maybe this is a chance to learn the answers to daily life questions through a scientific approach. That’s research,” Watanabe said.

Watanabe spent part of the spring semester observing how people interacted in the Student Center. She took note of the demographics of those using the student center, the activities they participated in, and with whom they interacted. She followed this with a survey that asked students questions about how they use the Student Center.

While analyzing the data this summer, Watanabe has determined that the new facility has served to strengthen community interaction on campus.

“The Student Center is really encouraging a sense of community,” Watanabe said. “I think it’s doing this very well because many people, according to the survey data, come to the Student Center alone, but they find someone here. It’s a nice place to just drop by and chat with people.”

Some survey responses indicated that sharing such a nice facility inspires students to treat the center—and each other—with respect, Watanabe said. “Since this is new and everybody likes it, everyone wants to keep it clean and nice. That also is creating a sense of community by making something symbolic for everyone to share on this campus.”

Watanabe is still analyzing some of the data she collected to learn more about the interaction between different demographic groups. She hopes her research can result in suggestions that will help more people use the Student Center and create a stronger community among the diverse student body.

“Many people have already found that they can do so many different things in the Student Center: they can eat, talk, play games, and study,” she said. “Having that kind of place is really nice. As many people do that, there are more opportunities for different people to get to know each other and find something in common.”

Students make film for Summer Research

On a warm summer day, as the late afternoon sun beat down on a mountain in Amherst County, Virginia, Sonja Cirilo ’15 applied a thin layer of makeup to make Bill Bodine’s face look paler and older. A few feet away, theatre professor Mace Archer looked out over a valley and ran through a script in his head.

When the camera began rolling a few minutes later, Archer portrayed Bobby, a man carrying his aged father on a miles-long hike into the mountain wilderness. “Ain’t got a name, far as I know,” he said. “Besides, you don’t need to know where it is.”

Sonja Cirilo ’15 makes notes during the filming of a scene in Beholder.

Archer and students have worked together this summer to produce a film adaptation of Beholder, a one-act play written by retiring Randolph English professor Jim Peterson. Students took on roles ranging from storyboarding to post-production, giving them insight and hands on experience in the art of filmmaking.

“It was much more tedious than I anticipated. It took a long time, but it was a good experience,” said Ashley Peisher ’15.

In Beholder, Bobby realizes that his father, “Pop,”  likely will die soon. He carries Pop into a mountain where he hopes to reconcile their flawed relationship and help his father open his eyes. After discussing the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Bobby implores, “You got to learn to be a beholder, Pop!”

“They do have a lot of conflict between each other. They have a big secret that has torn them apart,” Peisher said. “It is really about trying to give his father this enlightenment before he dies.”

Archer directed and acted in Beholder more than 10 years ago when he and Peterson each taught at Montana State University – Billings. After Peterson came to teach at Randolph, Archer produced several more of Peterson’s plays in Montana.

Mace Archer talks with Skip Wallace and Bill Bodine about Beholder.

Cirilo and Peisher each helped Archer in a Summer Research project last year when they produced a play in a local motel as an experiment in environmental theatre. He invited both of them to participate in this new project this year. “I thought that the opportunity to shoot a film and give students the opportunity to see that process would be really exciting,” Archer said.

Because of Peisher’s design talent, Archer asked her to produce the storyboards—sketches that demonstrate the basic look of each scene and camera shot. He assigned Cirilo to oversee continuity—making sure that costumes, lighting, and props remain consistent from one scene to the next. He also wanted Cirilo, who hopes to act on television someday, to see how acting in front of a camera is different from acting on stage.

“I thought it was a really cool idea, and I wanted to get on board with it,” Cirilo said.

Skip Wallace, Randolph’s video producer, filmed the show and taught the students how to edit it using modern editing software.

The production crew recorded Beholder on a mountain over a period of several evenings in the past two weeks. This week, they are going through a painstaking editing process. The students hope to have the video ready to show by July 5, when Summer Research students will present the results of their projects. Then they will submit the video to several film festivals.

Peisher hopes that people will see the film and “I hope you will look around you and acknowledge the beauty of things around you, and really take in your surroundings, and be a beholder of beauty,” she said.

Transfer student finds more fun and academic opportunity at Randolph

A year ago, Elizabeth van Noppen ’14 had to make a difficult choice. She knew she should leave the campus that she had called home for her first two years of college.

At her first college, she did not experience the academic challenge that would help her grow. She also wanted greater diversity among her classmates and more social activities. “I wanted a place where everyone wanted to stay and have fun on the weekends,” van Noppen said. “I wanted a place that had a dynamic atmosphere and character.”

Transfer Week

Randolph College is celebrating Transfer Week June 24 – 28. Learn more and schedule a tour of campus at www.randolphcollege.edu/transfer.

That spring, she watched her older sister Marian van Noppen ’12 graduate from Randolph College. Inspired by her sister’s pride and positive experiences here, she decided to tour Randolph for herself. “During the tours and the interviews I had, there was a clear difference,” she said. “I felt like I was connecting with this school. There was diversity, there was challenge, and there was more opportunity in my field.”

A psychology major, van Noppen spent part of that first campus tour talking to Beth Schwartz, the Catherine E. & William E. Thoresen Chair in Social Sciences and assistant dean of the College. Schwartz told her about a Summer Research Program project she was working on to study how honor codes affect academic honesty and cheating. Hearing that Randolph students have opportunities to work on summer projects alongside experienced professors helped van Noppen decide to transfer to Randolph.

Transfer student Elizabeth van Noppen ’14, left, has enjoyed singing in Randolph’s female a cappella
group Songshine, fun traditions, and academic opportunities like the Summer Research Program.

Today, van Noppen is continuing that same research project on academic honesty in the 2013 Summer Research Program. Over the past few years, Schwartz and Megan Hageman ’13 conducted surveys to test how people viewed various dishonest academic behaviors. They found that students at colleges with traditional honor codes—featuring self-scheduled exams, a student-run judicial system for honor violations, and the expectation that students report violations—are more aware of standards of academic integrity than students at schools without honor codes or with a non-traditional honor code.

Van Noppen became interested as she saw the way Randolph’s honor system, including self-scheduled exams and many take-home tests, fostered integrity. “I noticed that the culture is really different. With less supervision, with more trust in your students, it makes students act more honestly, because there is that responsibility on them,” she said. “It’s helpful to see what mechanisms help reduce dishonesty in the classroom. I had always thought, to reduce cheating, you should add more consequences or try to manipulate the environment. Coming here and looking at the research, I've realized that's not the case.”

Van Noppen has continued analyzing data, focusing on the way gender affects academic honesty. She also helped finish a paper on the research which they submitted to the Journal of Ethics and Behavior.

In addition to Summer Research, van Noppen has enjoyed singing with Songshine, Randolph’s female a cappella group, and participating in events like Ring Week, when juniors and first-year students exchange gifts and juniors receive their class rings.

She encourages other college students who are looking for a change to tour Randolph and see whether it offers what they are looking for. “If you come here, you will have really special relationships with faculty and your peers,” she said. “You’ll be challenged academically, and you will have fun sporting events to attend. You’ll do quirky traditions. You’ll graduate knowing people you never thought you'd meet, and having friends you never thought you'd be friends with.”

Summer Research student examines Blackwater Creek health

For 10 years, Randolph College students have been testing the health of Blackwater Creek, a tributary of the James River flowing through Lynchburg. This summer, Kavya Pradhan ’14 will analyze all of the test results and decipher what that data says about the waterway.

“We have 10 years’ worth of data, but we didn’t have anyone analyzing it,” Pradhan said. “I want to know whether we have recorded any trends.”

Kavya Pradhan ’14, right, and Galen Shen, a high school student assisting
with the project, take water samples from Blackwater Creek in Lynchburg.

Karin Warren, the Herzog Family Chair of Environmental Studies, began teaching her students how to test water quality in 2003, shortly after she began her position at the College. She still assigns students in her beginning environmental studies classes to take water samples each fall, with more advanced students serving as project leaders. They examine the stream’s physical and chemical characteristics, as well as the volume of insects, worms, and other small organisms that can be found in samples. “We’ve had well over 300 students who have worked on this project over the last decade,” Warren said.

A few years after Warren’s students began testing the waters, Lynchburg began efforts aimed at improving Blackwater Creek. Those efforts have included sewer system upgrades designed to stop sewer lines from overflowing into the creek during storms, as well as erosion control programs. By analyzing test results from before the work began to more recent data, Pradhan hopes to measure the impact that the improvement efforts have had.

“It’s really essential to see whether or not a type of remedial action is having an effect,” Pradhan said. “You might be spending millions of dollars on it without improving it.”

Ludovic Lemaitre ’11, sustainability coordinator, Sarah Lawson, an  environmental science
and physics professor, Karin Warren, the Herzog Family Chair of Environmental Studies,
 and Mimansha Joshi ’14 look for tiny organisms in leaves pulled from Blackwater Creek.

In addition to analyzing test results from previous years, Pradhan is collecting new information. On Monday, she led a group on a testing expedition on a section of the creek not far from the College. They spent a few hours collecting water samples, counting creatures found in the mud, and running other tests. It was a welcome break from more mundane data analysis.

“That’s what’s great about this project. I can stay inside and work on the computer going over the data sheets. But I can also go out and get into the stream,” Pradhan said. “It might be frustrating to get down the steep bank to the creek, but when you get down there you can look around and it’s really pretty.”

The project was featured in a story by a local television station on Monday. Read the WDBJ-7 story here.

Student looks to the skies in astronomy research project

If scientists ever discover a giant asteroid on a collision course with our planet, they will owe a lot of their information on the asteroid to the observations of amateur astronomers such as Hart Gillespie ’15.

Gillespie is conducting a Summer Research project at Winfree Observatory, Randolph College’s 90-year-old observatory with a 14-inch telescope. He hopes to record an asteroid occultation and submit the data to an international database that helps scientists track asteroids.

An asteroid occultation is an instance when an asteroid passes between the earth and a star, blocking part or all of the light. An astronomer can observe that part or all of the star disappears momentarily, ranging from a split second to as long as 20 seconds. This can provide valuable information on an asteroid that is otherwise invisible.

“All you need is one occultation to see that the asteroid was there, but you would know where it was in only one instance in time,” said Gillespie, a physics major. “You would have no idea where it’s going, or how fast it is going, and you would not know the shape of the asteroid.” Those additional details can be pieced together as astronomers from many locations track occultations and send their data to the International Occultation Timing Association.

Gillespie’s plan is to pay attention to asteroid occultation predictions, usually published about a week in advance of a potential occultation, to schedule time to work in the observatory in hopes of viewing an occultation.

Observing occultations has been more difficult than Gillespie had anticipated, mainly because of weather conditions over the past several weeks. “I’ve learned it's cloudy a lot, so maybe I should go into radio astronomy,” he said.

While waiting for clear skies, Gillespie has been working with the College’s facilities staff on plans to improve the observatory facility with an electrical upgrade, scaffolding that will make the telescope easier to use, and a first-floor classroom area. He hopes the changes will make Randolph College Star Parties, held about once a month, more enjoyable for amateur astronomers in Lynchburg and more useful for physics education at Randolph.

Sending Order Through Chaos: Student examines "Rule 30" math problem

A Randolph College student is using his math and computer programming skills to help solve a puzzling mathematical problem.

Nam Hoang ’15, an engineering physics major, and Marc Ordower, a mathematics professor, are working with Stephen Wolfram’s “Rule 30” to explore ways to keep chaos from disrupting a pattern. When Hoang expressed interest in the Summer Research Program, Ordower suggested working on this problem because it has fascinated him for several years.

This computer simulation demonstrates how Rule 30 can be
applied to a pattern. After enough rows, the pattern (the alternating
on-and-off straight lines) disappears into chaos.

Wolfram’s Rule 30 demonstrates entropy—the move toward chaos. To apply the rule, mathematicians define a pattern in a row of cells that can be either alive or dead. On the next row, the status of each cell depends on the pattern of cells immediately above it. After a few rows, the entire system begins to demonstrate chaos.

Ordower wanted to find out if there is a way to create a pattern that can remain constant over an infinite number of new rows, even as chaos grows around the pattern. If such a pattern does exist, it could have implications for numerous situations, such as sending data electronically. “We transmit data all the time, and some of that data is lost,” Ordower said. “There are lots of people working on how robust you can make a message, and how many resources you need to make a message robust so it arrives correctly.”

Ordower and Hoang are spending most of their research time with pencil and paper trying to devise an algorithm and mathematical proof that would show that there is a pattern that could continue indefinitely. Hoang also has been writing computer programs to help dig deeper into the question. “At first it looked like it was so simple. We were trying to prove that we could send information through chaos,” Hoang said. “It turned out that it was very complicated. I’ve learned to analyze it and understand it.”

Hoang’s efforts have yielded some insight. His computer program discovered a pattern that disappears into chaos, but parts of the pattern emerge again.

Solving a complex problem like this is much larger than a summer project, so Ordower expects he and Hoang will continue seeking an answer even after the Summer Research program completes. He said it is great experience for Hoang, who hopes to become a computer engineer, in working with a mathematics problem that has never been solved, which is the real work of mathematics.

“The bigger mathematics gets, the more open problems there are,” Ordower said. “There are thousands of mathematicians working on millions of open problems around the world.”