ABSTRACTS
2019 National McNair Scholars Conference at UCLA
Name: Amanda Carrasco
Presentation Title: An Examination of Community Cultural Wealth on the Legacy Scholars Program
Research Focus: Higher Education
School: Westminster College
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
This project seeks to challenge cultural capital frameworks (Bourdieu 1973) and suggests incorporating a community wealth model (Yosso 2005) as a way of increasing first generation success in college. This research examines the cultural community wealth model and its application to a current program at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, which aims to increase first generation student persistence and celebrate different aspects of culture and diversity. Previous research conducted on first-generation students suggests that they lack skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are essential for succeeding in higher education, especially students of color. Hence, first-generation students need to gain cultural capital in order to be successful in college. This project will argue that this framework is deficit-oriented and higher education need to shift its focus to uplifting students’ existing talents, strengths, and experiences through asset based pedagogy. The purpose of this study is to examine how the community cultural wealth model is applied and influences student success for the Legacy Scholars Program. Data was collected in the form of semi-structured interviews with Legacy Scholar students to see how the community cultural wealth model is applied to their experiences in the program.
Researcher: Kami Chesnut
Presentation Title: Banksy Goes to Park City
Research Focus: The Morals and Ethics of the Modern Street Art Movement
School: Westminster College
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
In this project I argue that negative ethical or moral behavior can be justified as long as it ultimately results in positive change for the greater good. I will examine the philosophical dilemmas surrounding the modern street art movement and the British artist Banksy as an example of the end justifying the means. Banksy’s notoriety as a street artist along with his significant shift into popular culture has made him a controversial figure in both the institutional art and street art worlds, highlighting the problems with the morals and ethics of aesthetics, personal expression, use of public space, minor crime and property laws. To understand the long-term effect of this illegal art form, I focus on Park City, Utah, and the 2010 Sundance Film Festival release of Banksy’s independent film “Exit Through the Giftshop” and the subsequent Banksy “Street Tags” that appeared in the city at the time. Through interviewing city officials and key figures associated with and affected by the Banksy paintings, I hope to shed light on the contradictory ethics held by the artists, the law, critics, art collectors, property owners and city residents, about the proper use of public spaces and determine which philosophical arguments about street art, and Banksy in particular, are most ethically sound. Ultimately answering the question if the presence of Banksy over the last ten years has had an overall negative or positive affect, and if the affect has been mostly positive does that morally balance Banksy’s crimes and anarchic ethical example.
Researcher: Jeremy Herrera-Gutierrez
Presentation Title: An Analysis of Halophilic Microorganisms Within Processed Solar Salt Sourced from Great Salt Lake
Research Focus: Halophile presence in processed solar salt
School: Westminster College
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Halophilic archaea and bacteria thrive in hypersaline waters and represent a significant ecological component of Great Salt Lake. One adaptation of interest is their ability to survive periods of drought by becoming trapped within salt cavities termed fluid inclusions. Previous studies have shown halophile growth from minimally processed food-grade commercial solar salt. It is, however, currently unknown if this adaptation allows halophiles to survive processing related to water softener salt production. This may include various forms of physical modification and chemical treatments. The aim of this study is to quantify the number of viable halophilic microorganisms recovered from processed water softener solar salts. This will be completed using a combination of two different methods. Direct counts using trypan blue differential staining will be used in combination with a hemocytometer to accurately quantify the number of viable halophiles recovered. In addition, conformation via culturing with halophile specific media will be used. This media will eliminate the possibility of contaminating non- halophilic microorganism growth while also allowing for a rough estimation of the diversity of halophiles present. If confirmed, halophile presence in solar salt may have secondary impacts regarding human health and Great Salt Lake ecology.
Researcher: Yazmin Marin Chavez
Presentation Title: Perceived Academic Competence and Language
Research Focus: Language
School: Westminster College
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Although discrimination is discussed often in academic settings, if/how people internalize those stigmas is typically left out of the conversation. For example, do bilinguals internalize different stigmas depending on what language they are using in academic settings? In this experiment, we will be testing what implicit biases people have when they are presented with words in Spanish or in English. We will be testing the effects of these two languages by having people take a Self- Esteem IAT that looks at how participants pair words, positive or negative, with themselves or with others. We expect to find that people will respond faster when they pair Spanish words with themselves, and slower when they pair English words with themselves. This research can help expand the knowledge of how bilinguals, or multilinguals interact with their environment, and how language impacts thoughts.
Researchers: Charlotte A. Mulliniks, Haley Nate, Julianne Smith & Loraine Gudino-Cuevas
Title: Influence of Bird Sounds on Directed Attention
Research Focus: Attention restoration theory (ART) and improvements on directed attention
School: Westminster University
Presentation Type: Oral and Poster Presentation
Directed attention is an important process involved in cognitive functioning. Mental fatigue from daily tasks often leaves a persons directed attention depleted. According to Attention Restoration Theory (ART), exposure to natural stimuli can restore directed attention. Although many studies have investigated the ability of natural visual stimuli to restore attention, research exploring the restoration provided by natural auditory stimuli is lacking. With an abundance of sounds found in nature, bird sounds are among the most prevalent. This study aims to investigate the differences in restoration experienced after listening to sounds from different avian species compared to a control of listening to silence. It is expected that different species will provide varying measurements of attention restoration due to differences in the sounds each species makes. Two species of birds, the common house sparrow (P. domesticus) and the black-billed magpie (P. hudsonia) were selected based on their perceived restoration potential (PRP) score determined by Ratcliffe et al. 2016. Participants will listen to a recording of one of the two species, immediately followed by the Attention Network Test (ANT) to measure the restorative effects on directed attention. Results are expected to show a higher restoration of directed attention in the participants who listened to the common house sparrow, showing that bird sounds of a specific species can be restorative. As directed attention influences decision making, problem-solving and a variety of executive functions, it is important to understand how natural sound can improve this process.
Researcher: Grace Padilla
Presentation Title: Electrophysiological Responses of Hirudo verbana to Different Intensities of Ultraviolet Radiation
Research Focus: Neuroscience
School: Westminster College
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Visual information is encoded in the nervous system through a series of electrical events called action potentials; colloquially, neurons “talking” to each other. The leech Hirudo verbana sees the world through two different sets of “eyes”: cephalic and sensillar. Cephalic eyes are located on the anterior sucker, whereas sensillar eyes are situated along the leech body. Recent studies
show that shining ultraviolet radiation (UVR) on different eyes elicits different escape behaviors. These behaviors have yet to be characterized at a cellular level. I will record electrical activity from the leech nerve cord to see how cephalic eyes are encoding visual information. I will also modulate light brightness to determine how leeches distinguish different UVR intensities. Lastly, to further understand the anatomical pathway of cephalic eyes and how they transmit visual information, I will identify the neural pathway from the cephalic eyes to the leech headbrain.
This data will be paired with behavioral assays, as well as electrophysiological recordings from sensillar eyes. I expect that intensities will be encoded as follows: higher UVR intensity yields more action potentials, and each type of eye will encode UVR through a different action potential pattern. These differences may underlie the two escape behaviors. This work will lend insights on how H. verbana detects where light is coming from, and how the organism processes different intensities of aversive stimuli.
Researcher: Nelson Valencia Garcia
Presentation Title: Microphone Phones Home: Black Feminism in Solange’s “Can I Hold the Mic (Interlude)”
Research Focus: English Studies
School: Westminster College
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
In this project, I analyze the track “Can I Hold the Mic (Interlude)” by Solange Knowles, from her album When I Get Home (2019). Solange uses vocal manipulation, electronic instruments, and a sample of an early 2000’s interview, with two members of the crunk group Crime Mob, to create space for herself and other Black women in the music industry. To analyze the lyrical and sonic elements of this track, I combine theories of Black feminism with concepts of Black musical aesthetics. The concept of Black musical aesthetics, sometimes called Black music or Afrodiasporic music, generally refers to how musical forms of African descent have strong themes, patterns, and connections. A Black feminist framework is utilized to observe themes of self-identification and empowerment of black women’s voices, and how the track uses them to maintain space for Black women in the public sphere. Awareness of the cultural aesthetics helps guide an analysis, calling attention to certain aspects of the song, while Black feminism gives insight on lyrics and performance. For example, Solange’s sample combines core Black feminist themes with a Black musical tradition, to bring the past forward and set the tone of the track: it gives the track its title and connects Solange with Black female rappers of the early 2000’s.
Finally, these theoretical frameworks are combined to demonstrate the need for sounds, lyrics, and sonic composition to be given equal weight in the analysis of music.