Seriously good work by seniors shows they’re ready
Guided by a favorite faculty member, Augustana students complete a substantial project on a topic of choice in their senior year. These Senior Inquiry projects vary as much as the individuals within Augustana’s 90+ academic programs. Along with pride of accomplishment and kudos, students have a valuable project for their résumés and professional portfolios when they're finished.
Due to COVID-19, there was no Celebration of Learning to showcase their work this year. But seniors showed grit and talent in completing excellent Senior Inquiry projects, and they made their professors proud.
Snapshots of Senior Inquiry
Dr. Ann Perreau of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders said it was “a joy” to work with Maggie Caldwell, who “provided culturally competent assessment and intervention services to patients with dysphagia (or swallowing difficulties).
“Her project investigated healthcare disparities in the U.S. and the cultural mismatch that exists between patients from diverse backgrounds and speech-language pathologists. Maggie outlined the six principles that guide cultural competence service delivery that include consideration of that patient's culture and social environment and consultation with the family, among others.”
Next, Caldwell will attend graduate school in speech-language pathology at Portland State University.
Josh Malone’s Senior Inquiry project theorized that polished stones from Utah are dinosaur stomach stones, or gastroliths (stones that animals swallow to help digestion in the gizzard). His paper won the Best Undergraduate Student Paper Award from the Society for Sedimentary Geology at the 2018 Geological Society of America national meeting in Indianapolis. Now he is off to the University of Texas at Austin for a fully funded Ph.D. at the university’s Jackson School of Geosciences.
His work was shared by Susan Wolf and Dr. Mike Wolf, Department of Geology.
Anthropology major Christian Elliott sent a concise abstract of his project: In an age of austerity politics, parks and recreation departments in Midwest Rust Belt cities often lack adequate funding to maintain such public green spaces. Recently, the business-minded Rock Island Parks Department has implemented a creative cost-saving management solution: “naturalizing” sections of its city parks. This interdisciplinary study uses a mixed methods approach to discover how the community members near two representative urban parks in the city perceive this economically motivated accidental “rewilding” of long-manicured and domesticated urban nature.
His work was shared by Dr. Adam Kaul, Department of Anthropology.
According to Dr. Lendol Calder, professor of history, Mikaela Ferrara’s work may be of special interest to “local folks.”
Dr. Calder said Ferrara's project “examined the debate in Davenport between proponents and opponents of women's suffrage 1860-1920. As documentation for this subject was scarce, her project became a kind of detective story with the young historian looking high and low for clues.”
Dr. Lena Hann, assistant professor of public health, said her student Alejandra Martinez facilitated a partnership of multiple local organizations—including Augustana’s Office of International Student and Scholar Services and CORE, along with World Relief Quad Cities—to match student translators with refugee families.
Dr. Hann said Martinez’s work “will have an immeasurable impact on families new to the Quad Cities,” as well as the students translating.
“Alejandra has embodied the Augustana spirit since she transferred here in 2017. We are proud of her hard work, service to the community, and innovation in culturally competent care for others.”
Martinez interned with World Relief Quad Cities in the fall of 2019. Now she works full-time with World Relief, using skills she developed throughout her education and specifically through her Senior Inquiry work.
Art seniors can showcase their projects in the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art, though visitors must view them online. Professor Kelvin Mason is especially proud of the work of Ali Muksed, who created new typefaces in Arabic.
Music senior Evan Sammons wrote “Christus Victor and Constitutive Rhetoric: J.S. Bach’s Formation of a People in the St. John Passion.” Professor of Music Dr. Janina Ehrlich and Sammons' review committee called the 30-page paper “probably the best music SI we’ve ever read.”
And in computer science, Dr. Forrest Stonedahl sent examples of some fascinating work from a couple of teams:
– Maegan Patterson, Danny Tenorio, Genesis Sarmiento and Thomas Ayele developed an Android mobile app for learning ham radio call signs (transmitted in Morse code). Dr. Stonedahl said, “They worked with Dr. Mark Vincent (Augustana psychology professor and ham radio enthusiast), who provided the goal/inspiration for the project.”
See the ham radio Android app team’s blog post.
– Ehren Braun, Evan St. Paul, Larsen Harvey and Jacob Connors developed a marketplace web application for Augustana students to list items to buy or sell. Their team’s final blog post includes a video walkthrough. And though it only has sample items for sale right now, the web-app is live for anyone with an Augustana email address.