Saturday, April 18, 2015
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saturday, April 18, 2015 Sponsored by the Higher Education Council of Berks County: Albright College, Alvernia University, Kutztown University, Penn State Berks, Reading Area Community College. Hosted by Albright College. HECBC Program Cover 2015.indd 2 4/13/15 11:22 AM welcome Welcome to Albright College! We are pleased to host the 16th annual HECBC Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference and look forward to all of the presentations. More than 200 students from the HECBC schools and other institutions are on our campus today, and the variety of projects you have worked on are testament to your hard work and talent, and to the dedication of your faculty mentors. As a liberal arts college, Albright recognizes the enormous value of undergraduate research and creative endeavors and actively fosters their practice. Faculty members from every discipline work side-by-side with Albright students, sharing in the creation of a unique curriculum that blends classroom learning, textbook study, close mentorship, and applied experience. We invest in experiential educational programs because it gives our students not only the skills their disciplines demand but also the wisdom that comes from making mistakes. This is where much valuable learning occurs. It is no accident that the Albright Creative Research Experience is among the most in-demand co-curricular programs on our campus, or that we have sent many dozens of students to present their work at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. I thank Albright’s outgoing provost, Andrea Chapdelaine, who has been an unwavering champion of experiential learning during her time at the College, and Kim Justeson, our director of experiential learning, who has been instrumental in putting today together. Please enjoy your time at Albright, and accept my best wishes on your continued success. Sincerely, Lex O. McMillan III President, Albright College 11th Annual Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference 3 HECBC Program Cover 2015.indd 3 4/13/15 11:22 AM conference schedule 8 A.M.-1:15 P.M. Registration Roessner Hall Atrium 8-10 A.M. Continental Breakfast Roessner Hall Atrium 8:30-9:30 A.M. Paper Session 1 Roessner Hall 101,102, 104, 105, 201, 203,204, 205 8:30-9:30 A.M. Poster Session 1 Roessner Hall Atrium 9:45-10:45 A.M. Paper Session 2 Roessner Hall 101,102, 104, 105, 201, 203,204, 205 Performance Session 2 Visual Art Session 9:45-10:45 A.M. Poster Session 2 Roessner Hall Atrium 11-11:45 A.M. Welcome & Keynote Klein Lecture Hall 12-1 P.M. Lunch Dining Hall 1:15-2:15 P.M. Paper Session 3 Roessner Hall 101,102, 104, 105, 205 Performance Session 3 Sponsored by the Higher Education Council of Berks County: Albright College, Alvernia University, Kutztown University, Penn State Berks, Reading Area Community College. Hosted by Albright College. HECBC Program Insides 2015.indd 1 4/13/15 11:21 AM Keynote Speaker PAPER PRESENTATIONS Robert J. Beall, Ph.D. Paper Session 1-A Roessner Hall 101, 8:30-9:30 A.M. President and CEO Panel Discussion: Race, Identity, and the Narrative Lens Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Jessica DeDeo, Reading Area Community College AN AFRICAN NIGHT As Natalia moved us from beyond the curtain, we found ourselves the only white people in the entire nightclub. The dance floor was a moving rainbow of colors. Under the leadership of Robert J. Beall, Ph.D., the Cystic One guy was wearing a green and brown jungle scene on a silk robe, which nearly Fibrosis Foundation has significantly advanced the search touched the wooden floor. Dark women in dresses of distinct patterns of yellow and for a cure for cystic fibrosis and helped dramatically improve black danced in a line, clapping and moving in a circle of fiery delight. Red lights from the length and quality of life for people with CF. Beall began the ceiling colored the moving shadows already encircled in snaking swirls of hookah his tenure at the CF Foundation in 1980 as executive vice smoke. My friends and I stood there waiting for all of the eyes to be directed at us. president for medical affairs and for the past 21 years has In a personal essay titled “An African Night” I describe an experience I had one night served as president and chief executive officer. Prior to joining when my friends and I were completely out of our element and welcomed wholly by the CF Foundation, Beall was on the medical school faculty of people who I thought were much different than I was. It turned out, I couldn’t have Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and worked at been more wrong. the National Institutes of Health, where he managed a large portion of NIH’s cystic fibrosis program. Rebecca Dunst, Reading Area Community College SKIN DEEP: UNDERSTANDING NARRATIVES FORMED BY RACISM During Beall’s tenure, the CF Foundation has become one “Until then, I was just a fourth grade girl, like all the others. But in that one second, of the most respected voluntary health organizations in the I was different. Though I hadn’t changed, I was someone else. Someone that looked country. The CF Foundation’s innovative “venture philanthropy” different. My skin was in patches, its color faded in only certain places, the contours approach to drug development, in which the CF Foundation scribbled on my face. My skin and its color, or lack thereof, was the reason these girls invests in research collaborations with pharmaceutical chose me as their target. Without the Vitiligo, I probably would have been accepted to companies to help bring new therapies to patients, has been this group that hurt me. The girls saw my skin as a weakness, as some kind of reason to emulated by other nonprofit health organizations. The creation be hated.” In a personal essay entitled “Skin Deep: Understanding Narratives Formed in the 1980s of a national network of research centers of by Racism,” I use the lens of my own alienation, a childhood experience generated as excellence, the Research Development Program, attracted a result of a skin disorder, with the intention of beginning to understand the racism and many leading institutions and first-rate scientists to the CF subordination experienced by others throughout history. Within this essay, I scrutinize research effort. This collaborative network contributed to the the idea of a “trump card,” and ultimately come to a realization that the world misses identification of the CF gene in 1989. Since that discovery, the character when it is focused on appearance as well as exploring the threads between CF Foundation has focused on translating knowledge about stories and the one thing the world tends to miss – that we are all human. the gene and the basic defect in CF into the development of novel CF treatments. In 1998, the CF Foundation launched Catherine Mahony, Reading Area Community College its ground-breaking Therapeutics Development Program, a unique coalition of industry, academics and the CF Foundation “WHITES AND DARKS” The color white is what the eye sees when it recognizes light containing all the that is directed at speeding the discovery and development of wavelengths of the spectrum. The only way to visibly see these frequencies as cutting-edge new CF drugs. individual colors is to separate them into a rainbow. The absence of light creates the color black. Black is associated with things such as evil and negativity. White is Nearly every CF drug available today was made possible associated with such things as purity and innocence. In a personal essay titled “Whites because of the CF Foundation’s business model, most recently and Darks,” I sort through the narratives that reveal the way we separate ourselves Kalydeco, the first drug to treat the underlying cause of the from each other, if only on a subconscious level. In this piece I use metaphor to disease in a segment of the CF population. The CF Foundation dissect the topic of racism which we as a society approach indirectly because of the maintains a robust pipeline of potential CF therapies that uneasiness that still surrounds the issue. We wear the pigmentation of our skin like target the disease from every angle, and the prospects for a clothing passed down to us from previous generations. We also garb the sentiments cure for cystic fibrosis have never been higher. we associate with skin color which are deeply woven into the fabric of who we are as individuals. This essay serves as narrative ablution as I divert from a childhood 16th Annual Undergraduate Research and Creativity Conference 3 HECBC Program Insides 2015.indd 3 4/13/15 11:21 AM confrontation with racism to the realization that we must not accept the prejudices given surveys (308 surveys), creation and analysis of facilitator feedback forms (7 facilitator to us by our predecessors. Some cycles only reach completeness by being broken. feedback forms), and firsthand experience co-facilitating both as a secondary and primary facilitator. Evaluating each facet separately and collectively aids in the future Tyler Smith, Reading Area Community College planning of the workshop. This specific program development is necessary not only THE RIGHT WORDS for the workshop itself and the student’s experience, but to also meet the new federal He broke it to me gently, mustering all of the 4 year old cool-headedness and tact he requirements under VAWA for college campuses pertaining to sexual violence and possibly could. He said “Now listen Tyler, you’re cool, you’re okay, but WHY is your relationship education. hair so weird!?” I rolled my eyes, thinking this kid’s an idiot.