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Research and Scholarship Days reveal campus's cutting-edge thoughts

Partnerships between students and faculty result in great ideas

Students are presenting their research projects on Main Street as a part of Research and Scholarship Days

Students are presenting their research projects on Main Street as a part of Research and Scholarship Days.

Mount Royal University's annual Research and Scholarship Days continues to grow, recording the largest participation from students since the event took shape almost five years ago.

New this year, students were able to present creative works ― increasing overall participation to 155 students in campus-wide events. Students from the faculties of Health, Community and Education, and Science and Technology, as well as from the departments of psychology, anthropology and midwifery, also took part.

Spanning 10 days from March 25 to April 5, 19 events celebrated published works and faculty and student research. Workshops kept the conversation flowing, and both locally and internationally recognized student competitions ― such as the JMH LaunchPad Pitch Competition and the Map the System Challenge ― had the campus buzzing.

"The energy speaks to the excitement from students to share their work and the passion of professors who integrate their own research into their classrooms," said Michael Quinn, PhD, associate vice-president of the Office of Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement. "This event is not only an opportunity to share our knowledge with one another, but also with our external community."

For the second year, Research and Scholarship Days kicked off with a virtual launch, featuring six faculty members and one student to highlight emerging MRU scholars and offer an opportunity for Calgarians to learn more about MRU's community-engaged research. The campaign This is research at Mount Royal University will continue to run throughout the month of April, sharing the MRU research story online and throughout the city.

 

 

Quinn thanked those who came together to foster MRU's knowledge-seeking community. "We rely on volunteer adjudicators and other kinds of support to ensure the events are efficient, effective, fair, transparent and instructive ― not to mention fun ― for the students."

 

Faculty Lightning Talks reveal what's in the minds of Mount Royal's thinkers

As part of Research and Scholarship Days, researchers took part in Lightning Talks, a rapid-fire series of presentations popular among the community. Topics included the evolving understanding of drunkenness; social media and the election; cinema and Alberta's ecosystems; youth entrepreneurship; sharing environmental issues and solutions between municipalities; and how wine has transformed the Okanagan region as a place for people to visit and live.

There were also insights into new and better ways to teach, always a focus at Mount Royal, with talks on the use of student spaces, how field schools help students develop social awareness and how virtual reality can help bring the field study to students in the classroom - on their smartphones no less.

Lightning talks illuminate research at Mount Royal

Student award recipients

Students who participated in the campus-wide events were adjudicated to determine a recipient of the 2019 Dean's Award for Research in each faculty.

All student participants were provided feedback on their work, offering an opportunity for students to present their scholarship, some for the first time.

 

 

Arts

A State of De-Stress: Achieving Subjective Well-Being Through Self-Compassion and Empathy

Kurt Hablado (psychology honours)

 

Business and Communication Studies

Left in the Cold: Canada's First Internment Camps

Alannah Page, Huyana Cyprien and Curtis Larson (journalism)

 

Health, Community and Education

Structural and Functional Musculoskeletal Implications of Patients with Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Kalindra Walls (health and physical education)

 

Science and Technology

The Ghost Map: An All Star Parody

Bryce Hardy (biology)

 

The Faculty of Science and Technology awarded students in four additional categories:

 

Independent Research winner:

Jordan Bird, Scott Thrall, Alexandra Skalk

Title: The Effects of Acute Hyperglycemia on Central Respiratory Chemoreflex Magnitude

 

Institute for Environmental Sustainability winner:

Philip Anderson, Kevin Hayes, Brendan Maddin, Melissa McCrady, Austin Zabel

Title: Quantitative description of the environmental impacts of mining in Butte, MT using biomonitoring

 

Course Based 3000 4000 winner:

Damian La Rosa Montes

Title:Myogenic Clock: A Novel Model for Skeletal Muscle Development and Differentiation

 

Course Based 1000 2000 winner:

Terrence Plunkett

Title: Web Accessibility Analysis of Western Canadian Universities: Do Accessibility Services Offer Accessible Websites?

 

Faculty Research and Scholarship Recognition Award recipients

Faculty Research and Scholarship Recognition Award recipients

Pictured here from left to right are Lesley Brown, Michelle DeWolfe, Erika Smith, Brett McCollum, Katja Hoehn, Michael Quinn, Faith-Michael Uzoka, Caroline McDonald-Harker, Maki Motapanyane.

Mount Royal presented Research Recognition Awards on March 28 to highlight the distinctive work of MRU faculty members.

"These awards celebrate the scholarly work of faculty members who have shown their commitment to the advancement of knowledge in their fields, collaborated with our community partners for the betterment of society and provided world-class opportunities for undergraduates to include research as part of their overall experience at MRU," Quinn said.

The following professors were awarded in five categories.

 

Career Achievement Award

Katja Hoehn

 

Community Engagement Award

Faith-Michael Uzoka

 

Emerging Scholar Award

Erika Smith


Undergraduate Research Supervision Award

Brett McCollum and Caroline McDonald-Harker (tied)

 

Research and Scholarship Excellence Award

Michelle DeWolfe

 

Knowledge Mobilization Award

Maki Motapanyane

 

At the event, Quinn acknowledged the excellence and quality of nominations, saying "your work makes me proud to be part of this institution and to be part of the cultural shift we are seeing as we develop our research and scholarship at MRU."

 

April 11, 2019 ― Marlena Cross

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