VCU Student Research Organization Meeting

Where: VCU Student Commons – Forum Room

When: Tuesday March 26th, 2013 4:00pm

The Student Research Organization (SRO) exists to raise awareness of undergraduate research through educational programs, workshops, and by providing avenues to become more involved in research.

The meeting will take place today, Tuesday, March 26th from 4-5 pm in the Student Commons Forum Room. Come out to hear more information about research opportunities here at VCU and also at other institutions.  We will also be recruiting to fill our leadership positions for next year, so if you are interested in serving on the executive board of the SRO make sure to come out and express your interest.

We will have a special guest speaker! Our very own VCU alum and former SRO President, Nisan Hubbard, will come back and speak about life after graduation. He is currently a PhD Graduate Student at Northwestern University and can answer questions any of you have about applying to grad school, interviewing, grad school life, etc.

Auctus: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship at VCU

Extended Deadline for Submissions until March 29^th

We are looking for outstanding creative submissions, undergraduate research and scholarship from the Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, the Arts, and Community Engaged Research.

Submissions to this electronic journal will be accepted online at: http://go.vcu.edu/submitauctus.

About the submission process: Auctus submissions are peer reviewed for originality, rigor and cohesion. Each staff group that conducts reviews is carefully mentored by a full-time faculty member. All works accepted for publication will undergo a final review process by VCU faculty in the discipline.

For students and faculty who might be concerned about publishing rights and copyright: Works accepted by Auctus only require one-time rights or simultaneous rights. This grants us to the non-exclusive right to publish the work one time and does not infringe on copyright or prohibit the author(s) from publishing elsewhere. Because our goal is to feature all of the best of VCU’s undergraduate research, Auctus also offers serial reprint rights, thus allowing students to have their work featured in Auctus even if it has been published elsewhere.

Examples of types of works Auctus seeks:  Auctus seeks traditional research projects and reviews in all disciplines. Our Creative Arts Section accepts all media. Some examples: musical compositions, dance performances, fashion design photos, sculpture, photography, paintings, prints, illustrations, crafts, graphic arts, film and kinetic imagery.  We also accept literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry that experiments with the form and function of the genre or, in other ways, investigates the creative process.  Works that combine media or genres are encouraged.

Journal redesign: With generous support from the Honors College and the Office of Research, Auctus is undergoing a redesign of its website and electronic journal. This cutting-edge design (scheduled for launch in August, 2013) will feature interactive PDFs and audio and visual streaming.

Students and faculty with questions or concerns, please contact us at auctus@vcu.edu

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program will be hosting its next poster session:

Wednesday, March 20, at 3pm in room 430 of Hibbs Hall

The workshop will focus on the significance of a poster as a vehicle for research presentation while covering some of the technical aspects of poster creation from design to printing.

Completion of the workshop will assist in preparing undergrads to present their work, whether for the Poster Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creativity taking place on campus April 24, 2013, or for any other national conferences related to undergraduate research.

In order to participate in the workshop, students must first register with Herb Hill at hhill@vcu.edu to ensure sufficient space.  If you would like to workshop your poster, but are unable to attend any of the announced sessions, please contact Herb Hill to schedule an alternate meeting time.

Student’s Civil War Music Ready for Spotlight

Content provided by:

Alexandra Klingelhut
Student Contributor
University Public Affairs

Virginia Commonwealth University’s “Year of Freedom” continues next week with a performance that will transport listeners to another era. The “Crisis of a Country – A United States Civil War Musical Retrospective,” a musical composition, reflects the emotions felt by Confederate, Union and enslaved individuals during the period.

The composer, Allen Wittig, an undergraduate music student, received a grant last summer from the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program that allowed him to research music of the Civil War era up to the Battle of Gettysburg.

The musical performance features original 20th-century music and popular songs of the mid-19th century. The piece will be performed by the combined forces of the VCU Orchestra and Commonwealth Singers on March 14 at 7:30 p.m. at the W.E. Singleton Center for the Performing Arts. Christy Coleman, president of the American Civil War Center, will narrate the event.

The music evokes that period and, even if only a little, enables us to feel what people then might have felt, said John Kneebone, chair of the Department of History.

“Abolitionist meetings would feature songs to awaken listeners to the evils of slavery and to enlist them in the cause,” said Kneebone. “Enslaved people found sustenance and powers of resistance in the singing of sprituals, and soldiers marched to ‘John Brown’s Body’, ‘Dixie’ and other tunes.”

The Year of Freedom is a university-wide program exhibiting VCU’s participation in the Future of Richmond’s Past project, which will sponsor the annual Civil War and Emancipation Day on April 6. Year of Freedom remembers 150 years of Civil War and Emancipation history. The program embodies the idea of “Confronting our past, facing our future.”

Read more about UROP Fellow, Allen Witteg’s project here:

http://www.news.vcu.edu/news/Students_Civil_War_Music_Ready_for_Spotlight

Auctus, the Undergraduate Journal of Research and Creative Scholarship looks to move its publication exclusively online. Supported by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, this project offers a student the opportunity to design and develop a website for Auctus.

The student will build a website from the ground up, create platforms and avenues for the journal to be displayed online, develop guidelines and train future Auctus staff. Interested students should be familiar with basic web authoring tools such as WordPress, and have some experience and interest in web design. Students from all areas of study are encouraged to apply.

Specific courses completed: No Prerequisites

Skills/Interests: Interested students should be familiar with basic web authoring tools such as WordPress, and have some experience and interest in web design.

Student eligibility requirements: Interns must be available for the summer of 2013.

To apply, complete a brief essay (500 words) that describes why you are interested in the Auctus Summer Internship.  You should include any previous experience that would qualify you for the specific goals of this project.  Submit your essay at the application link here:

http://go.vcu.edu/auctusinternship

The deadline for applications is April 3, 2013

*Note: This application is for both Honors and non-Honors students.

Organized by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) and part of VCU Research Week, the annual Undergraduate Poster Symposium is a wonderful opportunity for students to present their research endeavors to their academic peers, members of the VCU faculty, community members, and friends and family.  All undergrads from every discipline are encouraged to present and attend.  Presentations may be for completed research projects, completed papers, or research in progress.

Projects involving creative work such as prose or poetry, performances, and artwork will be considered for acceptance if they are part of a scholarly project undertaken by the student.  We are currently accepting project abstracts up until the deadline of March 15th, 2013.  All abstracts should be submitted to http://go.vcu.edu/uroppostersubmit

After students are notified of their acceptance, we will accept electronic file submission of their posters until the deadline of April 5th.   Note: We hold poster workshops Dec. – Mar. and we are now able to print research posters free of cost to our students!  The next poster session will take place:

Wednesday, March 20 at 3pm in room 430 of Hibbs Hall.  Please email Herb Hill at hhill@vcu.edu to register for the poster session.

Abstracts should include: Name/Major of student, Name/Dept. of Faculty Mentor, Title of research Project, Brief description of research project.  All inquiries to hhill@vcu.edu

Auctus: the Undergraduate Journal for Research and Creative Scholarship at VCU!  Call for submissions: We are currently accepting written and creative submissions of undergraduate research and scholarship from the Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, the Arts and Community Engaged Research.  Submissions will be accepted online at: http://go.vcu.edu/submitauctus  through the deadline of March 15^th.  Please share this opportunity with your colleagues, students, and undergraduate researchers.  The website for Auctus can be found here:  http://www.auctus.vcu.edu/.

Guidelines for Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Submissions:

We are looking for papers and projects that demonstrate original thought and a new or creative way of looking at an interesting problem or question. Articles based on original student scholarship and research are preferred.

Specific Guidelines for Performance & Visual Arts Submissions:

We accept all media, including but not limited to music compositions, dance performance documentations, sculpture, photography, paintings, prints, illustrations, crafts, graphic arts, film and kinetic imagery. Titles are suggested, but not required. Please include dimensions and media of original piece. Please send us individual files in .jpg, .mov, or .mpg file format. A single submission may contain one piece or a series of pieces that are interconnected. All visual and performance art submissions must be accompanied by a supplementary one-page, double-spaced description of the research involved in creating the work as well as a description of the work itself. Any sources should be cited in MLA format.

Specific Guidelines for Creative Writing Submissions:

We accept fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. A single submission may contain one piece or a series of pieces that are interconnected. For prose pieces, there is no maximum or minimum word count, although we typically publish pieces of 1000-6000 words in length. Please include your entire submission in one file. Acceptable file formats include .doc and .rtf. We accept all genres.

Auctus’ Creative Works editors are looking for depth of thought, creativity, originality, and outstanding talent in both the creative work and written description. For more information please visit http://www.auctus.vcu.edu/submission/index.html or email one of the Auctus Creative Works co-editors, Sterling Toppings and Hannah Rumsey at toppingssw@vcu.edu or rumseyhe@vcu.edu.

Seeking Faculty Advisers/Reviewers

We are also seeking faculty to serve as article reviewers within their respective disciplines.  Each submission will undergo an internal review and proofreading process before they are forwarded to faculty for evaluation.  Faculty are welcome to review as many submissions as they like, but the expected number of submissions per faculty reviewer will be at most three, and likely no more than one.  If you would be willing to serve as a reviewer for Auctus, please email me at hhill@vcu.edu

The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program will be hosting its next poster session:

Thursday, February 28, at 3pm in room 430 of Hibbs Hall

The workshop will focus on the significance of a poster as a vehicle for research presentation while covering some of the technical aspects of poster creation from design to printing.

Completion of the workshop will assist in preparing undergrads to present their work, whether for the Poster Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creativity taking place on campus April 24, 2013, or for any other national conferences related to undergraduate research.

In order to participate in the workshop, students must first register with Herb Hill at hhill@vcu.edu to ensure sufficient space.  If you would like to workshop your poster, but are unable to attend any of the announced sessions, please contact Herb Hill to schedule an alternate meeting time.

SEEKING RESEARCH ASSISTANTS
FALL SEMESTER 2013
CLASS MEETINGS TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS 3:50-5:20 PM

In the fall of 2011 VCU launched Spit for Science: the VCU Student Survey (www.spit4science.vcu.edu). This project is following the 2011-2013 VCU freshman classes across their college years, and will also enroll new VCU freshman classes over the next few years. The goal of the project is to understand how genetic and environmental factors come together to influence a variety of health-related outcomes in the VCU undergraduate population. A big focus is on substance use and emotional health problems, such as depression, since the life stage that college students are entering is a high risk period for the onset of these problems.

We’re currently looking for students to be a part of the research team for Fall Semester 2013. Research assistants will be involved in recruitment, marketing, data collection and analysis, and other research activities. Students will work in teams to develop research questions and analyze Spit for Science data. Meetings will be held with different faculty involved in the project where students will review research papers and learn about topics related to the goals of the research. Required class meetings will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays 3:50-5:20 PM in the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics conference room (located in Biotech 1, 800 E. Leigh Street on the MCV campus), which can be easily reached from the Monroe Park campus via the free Campus Connector. Students at all class levels are welcome to apply. Enrollment will be for three credits (A-F).

To apply, please complete our online application at:

https://docs.google.com/a/mymail.vcu.edu/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGpjRFNUN25YOGRtYTRfbjRCaE9wNlE6MQ

Inquiries or questions can be directed to Dr. Amy Adkins <adkinsae@vcu.edu>. The application deadline is Monday, March 25 at 5:00 PM.

Auctus: the Undergraduate Journal for Research and Creative Scholarship at VCU!  Call for submissions: We are currently accepting written and creative submissions of undergraduate research and scholarship from the Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and the Arts.  Submissions will be accepted online at: http://go.vcu.edu/submitauctus  through the deadline of March 15^th.  Please share this opportunity with your colleagues, students, and undergraduate researchers.  The website for Auctus can be found here:  http://www.auctus.vcu.edu/.

Guidelines for Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Submissions:

We are looking for papers and projects that demonstrate original thought and a new or creative way of looking at an interesting problem or question. Articles based on original student scholarship and research are preferred.

Specific Guidelines for Performance & Visual Arts Submissions:

We accept all media, including but not limited to music compositions, dance performance documentations, sculpture, photography, paintings, prints, illustrations, crafts, graphic arts, film and kinetic imagery. Titles are suggested, but not required. Please include dimensions and media of original piece. Please send us individual files in .jpg, .mov, or .mpg file format. A single submission may contain one piece or a series of pieces that are interconnected. All visual and performance art submissions must be accompanied by a supplementary one-page, double-spaced description of the research involved in creating the work as well as a description of the work itself. Any sources should be cited in MLA format.

Specific Guidelines for Creative Writing Submissions:

We accept fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. A single submission may contain one piece or a series of pieces that are interconnected. For prose pieces, there is no maximum or minimum word count, although we typically publish pieces of 1000-6000 words in length. Please include your entire submission in one file. Acceptable file formats include .doc and .rtf. We accept all genres.

Auctus’ Creative Works editors are looking for depth of thought, creativity, originality, and outstanding talent in both the creative work and written description. For more information please visit http://www.auctus.vcu.edu/submission/index.html or email one of the Auctus Creative Works co-editors, Sterling Toppings and Hannah Rumsey at toppingssw@vcu.edu or rumseyhe@vcu.edu.

Seeking Faculty Advisers/Reviewers

We are also seeking faculty to serve as article reviewers within their respective disciplines.  Each submission will undergo an internal review and proofreading process before they are forwarded to faculty for evaluation.  Faculty are welcome to review as many submissions as they like, but the expected number of submissions per faculty reviewer will be at most three, and likely no more than one.  If you would be willing to serve as a reviewer for Auctus, please email me at hhill@vcu.edu