Summer Research project looks for Middle East peace

Sarah Terlizzi ’15 and Becca Leo ’15 have a lofty goal for their Summer Research project: peace in the Middle East.

While they do not expect a major international treaty soon to come from their summer work, they are researching and brainstorming ideas that could contribute towards a peaceful end to the conflict between Israel and Palestine that has waged for decades. “We’re not naive about this issue. We know it’s not going to change overnight,” Terlizzi said. “It’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of time, but in the end, it will be worth it.”

Sarah Terlizzi ’15 and Becca Leo ’15 participated in Model U.N. this
spring, and now they are exploring Middle East peace opportunities.

Jennifer Dugan, a political science professor, and Terlizzi have been planning this project since Terlizzi first participated in the Model United Nations program in 2012. They invited Leo to join them because she studied the Middle East conflict extensively for the 2013 Model U.N. conference. The purpose of the project is to study the role that the U.N. can and should play in creating peace.

They have studied every peace plan or “roadmap” proposed for the region over the past 13 years so they can look for common concepts. They also are examining proposals that have passed in the U.N. to determine what types of proposals could conceivably be adopted. “Our ultimate hope is to come up with our own roadmap to peace,” Leo said.

Leo was fascinated to see ideas emerge as she examined the proposals. “There was no one who was more pessimistic than I after coming out of a whole semester of studying this problem,” she said. “But there are many more points of consensus among these peace plans than I ever imagined. That’s something really positive to me.”

Terlizzi, Leo, and Dugan are adapting the common themes they identified and adding their own thoughts, too. One idea they hope to incorporate into their road map is to have the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) provide management for sacred sites in Jerusalem. This could protect and preserve holy monuments and locations in the city and alleviate some concerns of religious interests in the region, Leo said.

Next week, they will test their ideas by presenting them to two groups in Washington, D.C., one that represents Israeli Americans and one that represents Palestinian Americans. Those meetings will provide feedback to help them refine their ideas.

Terlizzi said her research has given her a more realistic understanding of what has caused the ongoing conflicts. Education is key to unwinding the animosity and establishing peace, she said. Leo added that economic advances and time will be necessary, too.

“As the younger generation gets to the age where they are running for office and being leaders, there will be less animosity,” Leo said. “Public opinion will change. It always does. We’re trying to see what we can do to help create public opinion flow in a way that would be positive.”

Students and biology professor aim to rid compost of deadly bacteria

A group of Randolph researchers hope to save lives by fighting bad cheese bacteria with good cheese bacteria.

The bad cheese microorganism is Listeria monocytogenes, which is dangerous and potentially deadly to the elderly, children, and pregnant women, and is sometimes found in soft cheeses. The good cheese bacterium is Lactococcus lactis, which is used to make cheddar cheese. They are studying whether putting Lactococcus lactis in compost will kill any Listeria and make the fertilizer safer to use.

Meron Demeki ’15 probes the temperature of compost.

“Municipalities and commercial entities are starting to get into mass composting,” said Adam Houlihan, a Randolph College biology professor. “If that compost becomes contaminated with some sort of food-born pathogens, those could possibly contaminate produce grown with the compost.” That contamination could result in more illness and death.

Houlihan asked Elizabeth Delery ’14 and Meron Demeke ’15 to work with him on this research project.

They turned four trash cans into composting bins and filled each with compost. One bin contains only the compost, while another contains the compost and Listeria (although a non-deadly form). The other two contain compost, Listeria, and different forms of Lactococcus lactis. Their theory is that the lactic acid and nicin produced by the Lactococcus lactis will help kill the Listeria.

Each day, the research team takes the temperature of each batch of compost. They also take samples to test for acidity and bacteria levels. Within a couple of weeks, the data should show hints about the validity of their theory, but Houlihan said the research will continue throughout the summer.

Elizabeth Delery ’14 prepares to streak a petri dish.

Delery has already started another research project with Houlihan to investigate a cancer treatment idea that she had. She said the compost research has helped her to develop laboratory skills that would be useful in her desired career as a medical doctor or in other careers she may choose. “I enjoy the research and the hands-on experience with lab techniques,” she said.

Demeke, who is weighing the options of attending medical school or pursuing a Ph.D., looks forward to finding out whether their method of killing Listeria works. “If we succeed in what we’re doing, we’ll be saving lives, which is the ultimate goal,” she said.

Lynchburg athletic and theatre summer camps available at Randolph College

Looking for enriching activities for your children this summer? Do you want your children to have lots of fun and learn a lot in these programs? Randolph College has several options, including athletic camps and a theatre program over the next few months.


Athletic Camps

Randolph’s coaches are running several camps to help children and youth to develop their skills. Camps are available for tennis, basketball (including one co-ed camp and one for girls only), horseback riding, and volleyball. Find the details, including registration information, here.

“Our goal for the week is to give each camper plenty of individual instruction in all areas of the game,” said Allison Nichols, head women’s basketball coach who leads the girls basketball summer camp. “Each day will be filled with fundamental work, competitions, games, prizes, and plenty of fun.”

Theatre Camp

WildCat Theatre Conservatory is returning to Randolph for the second year. This all-day theatre camp for K-12 students teaches a variety of acting skills ranging from musical theatre to improvisation, but it also helps build creativity and life lessons.

“I saw some kids who came into the program really shy. They opened up and were more confident by the end of the program,” said Ashley Peisher ’15, a Randolph student who helped run WildCat Theatre Conservatory and will work there again this summer. “It really gave the students an opportunity to grow and to help others grow. It was really cool to seem them work together.”

“It provided an arena for them to expand on their creativity,” said Sonja Cirilo ’15, another Randolph student helping with the conservatory for the second year.

Professional actors and theatre educators teach WildCat Theatre Conservatory classes on improvisation, musical theatre, acting, movement, and other skills. One of Peisher’s fondest memories was seeing high school students who improved their talent for improvisation. “They were doing some really genuine scenes that you would have thought were scripted,” she said.

The theatre camp is expanding to offer two different two-week sessions. One runs from July 15 to July 27 and the second will be July 29 to August 11. Get more information here, connect with the Theatre Conservatory on Facebook, or download the registration form here.

Grant will support Lynchburg edible landscaping nursery at Randolph's organic garden

The Randolph College Organic Garden will become a local source for plants that beautify yards and produce food, too, with the help of a grant from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF).

Ludovic Lemaitre ’11, Randolph’ s sustainability coordinator, has received an Emerging Leader Fellowship from NWF, which will provide training and $2,000 to help Lemaitre develop an edible landscaping nursery in the Organic Garden.

Edible landscaping is the practice of landscaping an outdoor area using fruit trees, bushes, herbs, and other food-producing plants instead of plants that do not produce food. For example, you could plant an actual pear tree instead of a Bradford pear tree, which grows flowers but not fruit.

“The propagation and distribution on edible perennials (fruit trees, nut trees, shrubs, herbs, etc.) will allow the re-planting of species that are beneficial to both humans and wildlife,” Lemaitre said. “The species will help reforest our region with useful species as opposed to the pretty, but ecologically sterile species that are planted in our landscapes today.”

Ludovic Lemaitre ’11 helps plant a fig tree on back campus
at  Randolph College, one example of edible landscaping.

Lemaitre studied edible landscaping during the Summer Research program two years ago, just after he graduated from Randolph College. He created an instructional guide for edible landscaping, expanded the Organic Garden, and began developing a plan for the garden to help local residents adopt edible landscaping by getting the plants started in a nursery. The NWF grant, along with funds from the College’s Organic Garden budget, will make that a reality.

Lemaitre will plan the details of the nursery this summer. Later in the year, he will work with Randolph students to start planting the nursery. They will host workshops about edible landscaping in late winter, and some plants might be available for transplanting to homes and businesses in the spring of 2014.

Randolph College’s Organic Garden was created 10 years ago by students. It is home to chickens, honeybees, an orchard, and a vegetable and herb garden. Students, faculty, and staff often work in the community garden to enjoy time outdoors and learn about raising natural food.

The Emerging Leader Fellowship is a new program that NWF created in 2013 to provide training and seed money for young professionals pursuing ecological projects. It is an extension of the federation’s Campus Ecology program, which has provided fellowships to college students since 2000.

Top psychology professors list includes Beth Schwartz

A Randolph College faculty member has been named one of the best 21 psychology professors in Virginia.

Beth Schwartz, the Catherine E. & William E. Thoresen Chair in Social Sciences and assistant dean of the College, was named to the list by StateStats.org and Online Schools Virginia, websites that provide information on educational resources, including online and traditional colleges.

Schwartz was selected because she “helps students prepare for graduate studies by facilitating hands-on lab experiences rarely available to undergraduates at other schools,” according to the online list. “She encourages students to learn through teaching, emphasizing collaboration across classes and disciplines.”

Schwartz said scientific literacy is a significant emphasis in her classroom. “When I'm teaching, I try to help the students understand the science of the discipline,” she said. “It’s not just content focused. It’s more about how psychologists understand the material.”

Schwartz begins this emphasis with her introductory psychology courses, so even students majoring in other subjects can understand how the science of psychology works. She invites students to help her prepare presentations for psychology conferences, write chapters for books, and design and conduct research projects during the year as well as during the Summer Research Program.

This prepares students to continue studying psychology, enter related fields, and answer questions that can benefit from a scientific understanding of psychology. “They know not just what the answers to the questions are, but how we can go about answering those questions,” Schwartz said.

The websites produced the list of top psychology professors after publishing information on the top schools in each state. “Our readers requested information on the instructors, so we had a group of researchers look for professors who had recently been awarded or recognized by their peers, students, and/or institutions for exemplary work inside or outside of the classroom,” said Roman Schomberg, a communications and partnerships official with StateStats.org. “Individuals whose work addressed issues to deemed to be of great importance were honored as well.”

Newly discovered Pearl S. Buck novel to be published this fall

Shortly before Pulitzer Prize winner, Nobel laureate, and R-MWC alumna Pearl S. Buck ’1914 died 40 years ago, she finished writing a novel titled The Eternal Wonder. That book will be published for the first time this fall.

Pearl S. Buck ’1914

Open Road Integrated Media, a digital publisher and multimedia content company, and InkWell Management, a literary agency, announced the publication this week. They will publish the novel in digital and paperback formats on October 22, 2013. The book was featured in an article in the New York Times.

The daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, Buck was born in West Virginia but spent many of her early years in China. She graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in 1914. She became a prolific writer, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Good Earth in 1932. She later won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938.

According to the New York Times story, two copies of the manuscript for The Eternal Wonder—one typed and one handwritten—were discovered in a Texas storage unit earlier this year.

The publisher describes the novel as “a personal and passionate fictional exploration of the themes that meant so much to Buck in her life. It tells the coming-of-age story of Randolph Colfax, an extraordinarily gifted young man whose search for meaning and purpose leads him to New York, England, Paris, a mission patrolling the demilitarized zone in Korea that will change his life forever—and, ultimately, to love.”

In a joint statement, Jane Friedman of Open Road, Michael Carlisle of InkWell, and Edgar S. Walsh, Buck's son, said, “We are thrilled to discover and publish a novel by one of only two American women to ever win both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes. The Eternal Wonder is as brilliant and inspiring as Pearl Buck’s most famous works, and we look forward to readers across the world getting to enjoy this long-lost masterpiece this fall along with Buck’s other wonderful books.”

Karen Patterson '73 speaks to Summer Research students

Students conducting research at Randolph College recently gained insight by listening to Karen Patterson ’73 talk about her life and her career.

Patterson, president of the Alumnae and Alumni Association and a member of the College’s Board of Trustees, spoke with Summer Research students while she was on campus for Reunion last week. She explained how her college education prepared her to pursue her multifaceted career.

Karen Patterson ’73 visits with Hart Gillespie ’15 after her
presentation to Randolph’s Summer Research students.

“As a science major at a liberal arts college, you aren’t limited to just science for the rest of your life,” she told them.

Patterson majored in biology at R-MWC. She was a student when the City of Lynchburg purchased land around Blackwater Creek and asked the College to help assess water quality and stayed to work on a summer project that involved taking and testing water samples. “That was my first experience with true research,” she said.

After she graduated, Patterson was hired at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. She got the job thanks to her ability to swim—the job required snorkeling—and because she had attended R-MWC, which happened to be the alma mater of the mother of the man who hired Patterson.

She went on to earn masters degrees at Wake Forest University and the University of South Carolina. Today, she is the environmental sciences group manager and a project manager at the environmental consulting and engineering firm Tetra Tech. Among other tasks, she writes reports for nuclear power plant license renewal applications.

Patterson also chairs the South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council and is on the executive boards of Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness (a non-profit dedicated to educating the public about the safety and value of nuclear energy) and the SRS Heritage Foundation. She recently was elected as the president of the R-MWC Alumnae and Randolph College Alumni Association.

Patterson said she was excited to learn about the variety of Summer Research projects students are pursuing this summer, including one project that continues to study water quality in Blackwater Creek.

“You are well ahead of where I was when I was your age, in terms of connecting science with your other studies,” she said. She added that students who are conducting research at Randolph now can play a role in helping communicate science to politicians, policymakers, and the public.