On Feb. 6, Maple Scholar projects were announced — 10 projects in total from a range of departments.
Andy Ammons, professor of biology and Maple Scholars director, said, “We have had more student applicants than ever before this year and at least as many mentor applications if not more than the last four or five years.”This year, 30 applications were narrowed down to 10 students who will be part of the research program. The selected students were announced on March 20.
One of the projects is being run by Cristóbal Garza González, associate professor of Spanish. He explained, “The idea is to interview business owners and have them narrate their own stories. Also their perception of themselves in terms of class and culture.”
“The mechanic is my student and I will approach local businesses around the area, mostly Goshen and Elkhart, interview them — open-ended interviews — and then just code their answers and see where that will take us,” González said. He will be joined by Fernado Daza, junior business and peace, justice and conflict studies double major.
Other projects include Emily Hahn, director of interpersonal violence prevention, education and advocacy, with Peace Muhagachi, senior sociology major, who will combine interviews and quantitative research to look at employee wellbeing and student success.
Sarah Method, assistant professor of art and department chair, and Ryan Snider, junior art major, are going to go through Goshen College’s art collection to add educational labels.
On top of being the program director, Ammons is a mentor for a project this summer. He and Ashley Garcia Coto, molecular biology and biochemistry major, will be looking at bees and propolis.
“It’s essentially tree sap, and they collect that sticky material and bring it back to the hive. It has pollen and saliva and all types of other things mixed into it,” explained Ammons. “Propolis is one of those things that has antibiotic and antimicrobial properties.”
Garcia Coto shared, “I am most looking forward to the actual collection of propolis. It’ll be interesting to see how propolis is gathered and used within the hive before bringing it into the lab.”
Other projects within the science field include David Housman, professor of mathematics and department chair, in collaboration with Josiah Miller, freshman math education major, who will be doing game theory modeling.
Manu Bhattarai, assistant professor of physics, with Filippo Gallo, junior computer science major, will analyze neural networks.
Phil Allman, associate professor of marine biology, and Laci Munger, junior environmental and marine science major, will work on a digital archive of field notes and reports from Goshen College’s Marine Biology program in the Florida keys.
Co-sponsors Eric Bradley, head librarian of the Mennonite Historical Library, and Sarah Mast, cashier and accounting assistant, are looking at digitalization. They hope to make primary source photos which have been digitized easier to access online.
Bradley explained, “There’s things like old digitized photos that are not online for that reason [because they are old] but they contain a wealth of information.” He added, “Because right now those online tools tell an incomplete story and so just trying to get that story told, the more information the better.”
Emma Campbell, a junior elementary education major, was chosen to work with them. “I was drawn to Bradley’s project because I already work at the library, but I don’t know that much about the Mennonite Historical Library on the third floor and this seemed like a good opportunity to learn.”
Another project within the library is being run by Jan Kauffman, associate dean of student success, who is partnering with Blanka Bodo, junior psychology major, to conduct interviews with first-generation college students, with a focus on students of color, about factors that lead to success in college.
The last project for this year is Kyle Hufford, associate professor of communications, and Silas Immanuel, senior accounting and film production major, who are going to research and make a short documentary about a story from the Goshen community.
Bradley said that the program is not designed to give a degree or a job, but rather to help people prepare for rich and fulfilling careers in the world.
Bradley said, “Maple Scholars and Hickory Scholars both allow students to engage with materials, to be able to do their own research for the first time, original research for the first time, being able to work closely with a faculty member for the time maybe in a different way than in the classroom setting to really explore through some new lenses.”
