April 23, 2008

LIS Event Provides ‘Celebration of Scholarship’

Theresa Byrd, OWU’s chief information officer and director of libraries, presents the 2007-2008 student research paper award to Amanda Masters, who studied the disappearance of honeybees.

A standing-room-only crowd attended the April 18 event, which recognized the academic accomplishments of OWU students, faculty, and staff.

Masters’ paper—“Pollinator Decline, Colony Collapse Disorder Among Apis mellifera and Implications for American Agriculture”—was selected from among 16 student entries to receive the 2007-2008 LIS research paper award, earning the Cincinnati resident a $500 prize from the Friends of the Library.

Masters, who wrote the paper for “Ecology and the Human Future” taught by Professor Laurie Anderson, Ph.D., says she became interested in colony collapse disorder after helping to care for an organic apple orchard in Michigan for two consecutive summers. The disorder involves a massive die-off of bees, typically affecting an entire hive or colony.

With colony collapse disorder, Masters says, hives often lose up to 90 percent of their bees. Some disappear altogether.

“For a long time, there was no smoking gun,” says Masters, who is double majoring in both environmental studies and sociology/anthropology. “As a result of my research, I believe there are a variety of factors, including parasites carrying pathogens. The parasites are infecting colonies of honeybees that are already compromised for a variety of reasons.”

One reason for the weakened colonies is that, in many cases, the honeybees are shipped from one part of the country to another and then fed supplements to keep them active at a time when they normally would be in hibernation.

“As a result, they are genetically and physically weaker to face the pathogens,” Masters says. “This has important implications as far as finding solutions. It affects the whole industrial agriculture system.”

After she graduates in May, Masters plans to spend a month at a yoga and meditation center and then take a one- to two-month recumbent bicycle tour of the California coast. Afterward, she will work as an intern at The Highlands Nature Sanctuary in south central Ohio. Ultimately, she anticipates studying either environmental education or sociology in graduate school.

Other Ohio Wesleyan seniors who submitted works for this year’s LIS research paper competition and their topics were:

• Michael H. Alcock, “Is You Is or Is You Isn’t: The Spirit of Poetry and Eliot’s Philosophy of Experience”
• Amanda G. Baker, “Changes in Religious Identity: Conversion to Islam in Early Moorish Spain”
• John Betts, “Constructing a Present Crisis: The Dramaturgy of Early AIDS Plays”
• Megan Dillhoff, “U.S. Bases Overseas: Where Hard and Soft Power Collide”
• Caitlin R. Dugre, “Issuing a Yellow Card: Questioning the Educative Value of Athletics”
• Aigerim Kikimova, “Globalization and Its Effect on Financial Crises”
• Amanda Matthews, “The Impact of Policy Structure on the Implementation and Evaluation of the Women, Infants, and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program”
• Karen McCann, “Artemisia Gentileschi: Victim to Retroactive Feminism”
• Jessica Nare, “Masquerading as Men: San Francisco’s Conflicting Reactions to Cross-Dressers in the Nineteenth Century”
• Jora Nika, “Albania and Romania: A Comparison”
• Rachael Roettenbacher, “Theory and Analysis of Starspots with Respect to the Spotted Star LO Pegasi (HIP 106231)”
• Laura Sedlack, “Obesity Epidemic: Sweeping America’s Youth”
• Kate Shannon, “Reconfiguring Binaries: A Study of Modernism, Gender Categories, and Sexual Orientation in Three Novels by Virginia Woolf”
• Christina Stith, “Dhuoda: Religion and Familial Authority in William’s Handbook”
• Amy Tuttle, “Adolescent Substance Abuse Prevention Efforts for the Delaware Community”

Participating on the panel of judges were Tom Burns, Paul Burnam, David Johnson, Tom Green, Ed Kahn, Deb Peoples, Ülle Lewes, Peter Szabo, Akbar Mahdi, Danielle Clarke, and Theresa Byrd, ex officio.

Byrd, OWU’s chief information officer and director of libraries, recognized all of the students during the event, along with 37 faculty and staff members for their academic papers, publications, and other presentations completed during the 2007-2008 academic year.

All faculty and staff works submitted as part the Celebration of Scholarship will become part of the OWU Historical Collection.

Byrd also updated the crowd on several LIS initiatives, including the installation of a cutting-edge, campus-wide 802.11n wireless network.

“When you come back [in fall],” Byrd announced, “you should have wireless in every area, every building.”

– Cole Hatcher