Evelyn Weaver presenting her research at the Academic Symposium.
Aiden Croghan|Marlin Chronicle
Many students at VWU conduct undergraduate research and participate in internships, whether it is for a major requirement, course requirement or just for their own personal undertaking. Some research and internship opportunities are offered on campus, but some students travel off-campus to participate in these opportunities.
Students in the Sport and Recreation Professions pathways, those being Recreational Therapy and Sport and Recreation Management, are required to do a four credit hour research methods course in addition to a 12 credit hour internship for their Senior capstone. Dr. Jill Sturts is the chair of the Sport and Recreation Professions department and helps students to enter into internships.
“Our majors are very practice oriented, so it helps them gain lines on their resumes, but it also exposes them to things that they find out, ‘Wow this is something that I definitely want to pursue!,’” Sturts said,. The research methods course that goes alongside the internship allows students to create a research project that they can use to benefit the internship, using both quantitative research, such as surveys, and qualitative research, such as interviews.
Doots Glodek is a senior and a Recreational Therapy major who interned at the behavioral health unit of Sentara General Hospital in Norfolk. During Glodek’s internship, she implemented games to help with patients’ cognitive skills, like Apples to Apples or trivia, games to help with patients’ social skills, like bingo or Uno, and activities to help raise patients’ self-esteem.
“When you think of the Special Olympics or Paralympics, recreational therapists are really involved in that. When you think about bingo for older populations, or doing activities like that for different people in the community, like everything from adult social clubs, which are for people with special needs who maybe don’t get to have certain experiences, like prom would be something,” Glodek said, explaining other ways that she could use skills from her internship in a different profession.
Evelyn “Ev” Weaver, a senior, interned over the summer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Portland, Oregon and also interned at a ceramics studio. Weaver majors in Philosophy, Environmental Studies and Studio Art. During this semester, she has worked on a project for her Honors capstone project that she feels she’s able to bring these three together with. “I got to integrate those things together,” Weaver said, “It gets easier to see more opportunities for interdisciplinary work as you spend more time and learn about each of the subjects.”
Weaver’s project is an art collection of ceramic sculptures of invasive species near to the Hampton Roads area.
“Humans brought them to places that they weren’t naturally at, and then they took over these environments, so it’s not on them. So I’m trying to respect the natural beauty that these species do still have,” Weaver said. The project utilizes a technique called Kintsugi, which is where the pieces of art are broken and then patched back together with gold. Weaver explained that she used Kintsugi, as it’s used to honor the beauty of broken things, which she felt was a similar situation to invasive species. Her project also includes educational information about the species.
Sophomore Haley Cummins, sophomore Madison Mellon and junior Mallory Dillon created a project for their Environmental Chemistry course to install air sensors on local businesses in Portsmouth and use this data to help improve air quality there. They titled the project “Breathe Better Portsmouth.”
“We partnered with a local named Gary Harris, who owns a nonprofit looking at environmental justice issues in local communities. He’s focusing on Portsmouth and the air quality issues, because there’s a lot of factories, ports and highways that go through Portsmouth and a lot of lower income areas,” Cummins said.
To research for this project, the students put air sensors in the ceramics studio on campus to see how kiln firings and other events impacted the air sensors. They also had to research the logistics of putting air sensors up in Portsmouth, and how they can use the information that they collect to improve the air quality.
“There’s a lot that goes into putting these sensors up in a city where there’s a lot of regulations, rules…,” Mellon said. “In the future, we’re looking to actually implement the sensors in Portsmouth, collect data, analyze the data, and then further understand how we can go about helping the PM2.5 matter and data in Portsmouth and try to decrease it for people’s health.” The air sensors that the group used are called Purple Air Sensors and sense matter that is under 2.5 micrometers, or PM2.5. Several small businesses and a Portsmouth fire station have already agreed to host their air sensors.
Students are able to learn more about internships through The Lighthouse in Clarke Hall.
By Aiden Croghan
accroghan@vwu.edu
