NPRESS Seeks to 'Change the Game'
Students complete first summer of new research program
CHICAGO (August 3, 2015) — When the spring semester ends and the last finals are complete, most undergraduate students head out on their own summer adventures. But for a group of ten students, in collaboration with ten faculty partners, a new academic opportunity was just beginning.
“North Park has been around for almost 125 years and I can tell you there has never been a summer quite like this,” ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï President David Parkyn told a full room on Friday, July 24, in the Johnson Center.
The audience was there to hear final presentations of the first group of NPRESS students. The NPRESS (North Park Research Experience for Summer Students) program provides opportunities for North Park students to conduct research with a North Park faculty mentor for eight weeks over the summer. It was the brainchild of a core group of faculty, and funded by a small group of donors, allowing students to dive into a topic in a way that the constraints of an academic year do not always allow. Students received a $3,500 stipend and were given the opportunity to live on campus, making it possible for them to focus solely on research.
“The donors who support NPRESS are individuals who are deeply committed to your experience here at ºÚÁϳԹÏ,” Parkyn told the students. “They want invest in you, and figure out the kinds of things that can change the game for our students.”
More than 30 students applied for the program, with 10 chosen. They worked with a faculty member on a topic and submitted a research proposal to the selection committee. The committee looked for diversity of topics, in addition to students who had laid the foundation for further research throughout their time at ºÚÁϳԹÏ. A number of students conducted research in the sciences, while others did work in theology, English, and accounting. A complete list of participants and projects is below.
“Some of the students were sitting on the fence as to what their future holds as far as academia,” said , co-director of the NPRESS program alongside . “This is going to give them the gusto, the strong thirst for more research, and it will probably have a positive effect on the larger student body and faculty.”
Students spent time in private research and in conversation with their sponsoring faculty member, but an important part of the NPRESS experience was communal learning. Together, they listened to panels of North Park faculty experts, hearing stories of their current research projects. They also attended the Justice Conference in Chicago, and participated in a guided architecture tour of the city. It was part of an effort to demonstrate that research is a communal project, and while individual topics may be different, there are many points where they interconnect.
"All learning is a creative process,” Parkyn added in his message to the students. A significant amount of the research presented today took advantage of our location in Chicago, reinforcing the idea that this city is in fact our classroom.
Alexandria Slavik, who is heading into her senior year at ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï as a double major in and , said NPRESS was a valuable experience for her because she “was able to learn every step to the research process.” Her project investigated the relationship between personality, religiosity, and vocation in ºÚÁÏ³Ô¹Ï undergraduate students. The goal was to understand the relationship in order to develop a model for prediction of vocation based on personality and religiosity measures, aiding advisors, students, and student support offices with career counseling and development. “This opportunity was important because when I graduate from North Park I will be pursuing a master's degree in occupational therapy. That is a growing field and I will benefit from basic research about practices and treatments.”
The NPRESS program will continue next summer and applications for interested students and faculty members will be available in the coming months.
2015 NPRESS student and faculty participants:
Samantha Wagner with Dr. Kezia Shirkey ()
Gender Differences and Health Change: Physical and Psychological Changes in Students Enrolled in Stress and Health
Alexandria Slavik with Dr. Elizabeth Gray ()
The Association between Personality, Vocational Interest, and Religiosity in College Undergraduates
Kristin Lundeen with Dr. Stephen Ray ()
Modeling Pedestrian Comfort in an Arbitrary Geometry
Oluwakemi Oshimokun with Dr. Suzen Moeller ()
Rethinking the Trauma Center Placement on the Southside of Chicago
Yavor Todorov with Drs. Matt Schau and Drew Rholl ()
Detecting and Characterizing Human Pathogens in Ixodes scapuloris
Matthew Davis with Dr. Joel Willitts ()
The Status of Prostitutes in the Religious Communities of the First Century City of Rome
Debbe Elfren Espejo with Mr. Mark Gavoor ()
The Relationship of Inventory Turns and Cash using Managerial Accounting Performance Measures
Erika Husby with Dr. Ilsup Ahn ()
Pedagogy of Centro Autónomo: Popular Education as Postcolonial Resistance and Recovery
David Potter with Dr. Mary Trujillo ()
Sustainable Social Change through Contemplative Activism: An annotated typology of self-care practices
Susannah Thorngate with Dr. Kristy Odelius ()
Poetry and Social Justice in the Chicago Community
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