[{"id":739,"date":"2026-04-08T12:06:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T16:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/?p=739"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:06:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T16:06:50","slug":"a-close-up-look-at-historic-preservation-archaeology-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/04\/08\/a-close-up-look-at-historic-preservation-archaeology-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"A Close-Up Look at Historic Preservation Archaeology Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you venture into the basement of Combs Hall, you’ll find a large room at the end of the hall with a wide fish-tank-like window. This space is the UMW Historic Preservation Department’s Archaeology Laboratory (Combs 012) and is a dynamic space for teaching, volunteering, and analysis. Dr. Katharine Parker, Associate Professor of Historic Preservation, is the Archaeology Lab Director and oversees all of the lab’s operations, volunteers, and two Student Aides.<\/p>

\"2
2025-2026 Archaeology Lab Aides Makayla Bowman (‘26) and Jackson Daniels (‘26)<\/figcaption><\/figure>

This year, Makayla Bowman (Anthropology & Historic Preservation majors, Museum Studies minor, ‘26) and Jackson Daniels (Historic Preservation major, GIS certificate, ‘26) are the 2025-2026 Archaeology Lab Aides. Regarding a day-in-the-lab, if large boulders, hidden traps, and Indiana Jones came to mind, you’d be a little off the mark. However, on any given day, the Lab Aides could be repairing a broken glass vessel, pulling artifacts from the study collection to use in a class, inputting artifact data into a digital database, or working with volunteers to wash and rebag archaeological material.<\/p>

\"Student<\/p>\n

“I love working in the lab! I hope to do this kind of analysis after I graduate, so getting the hands-on experience while in undergrad is such a special opportunity. One of my favorite parts about working in the lab is getting to share my love for archaeology with other curious, like-minded peers!” – Makayla Bowman (‘26)<\/p><\/blockquote>

 <\/p>

This Fall, the Lab Aides have been focused on adding new artifacts to the Lab’s teaching collection. Through these additions, future students will have more materials to reference for archaeological analysis projects.<\/p>

“Working in the lab the past two years has been one of the most amazing experiences I could have ever asked for. The chance to learn how a lab is run and gain significant experience before graduation is such a rare opportunity that I cannot be more grateful for. It’s a true joy working here: sharpening my analysis skills, working with volunteers, and learning what it’s like to do archaeology in the world outside UMW.” – Jackson Daniels (‘26)\"Student<\/p><\/blockquote>

A requirement for all Historic Preservation and Anthropology majors, HISP 207: American Archaeology is an introductory course that requires each student to volunteer in the Archaeology Lab for at least two hours spread across the spring semester. As the days start to get longer and warmer, Jackson and Makayla look forward to opening the lab up to the 207 volunteers.<\/p>

Throughout the semester, Dr. Parker and the Lab Aides also host Get Dirty, Go Wash Artifacts nights where students–regardless of major–can gain experience washing artifacts in the lab while watching an archaeology-related film. These events are great opportunities for anyone interested in lab work or who just want to dip their toothbrushes into archaeology.<\/p>

\"Student<\/p>

While the lab may not quite be ready to be in a Hollywood adventure movie, there is an homage to Indy Jones in between the Dry Lab and the Wet Lab!<\/p>

\"Photo<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you venture into the basement of Combs Hall, you’ll find a large room at the end of the hall with a wide fish-tank-like window. This space is the UMW Historic Preservation Department’s Archaeology Laboratory (Combs 012) and is a dynamic space for teaching, volunteering, and analysis. Dr. Katharine Parker, Associate Professor of Historic Preservation, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10,5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-humanities","8":"category-social-sciences","9":"category-undergraduate-research","10":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nA Close-Up Look at Historic Preservation Archaeology Lab - Beyond the Classroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/04\/08\/a-close-up-look-at-historic-preservation-archaeology-lab\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Close-Up Look at Historic Preservation Archaeology Lab\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you venture into the basement of Combs Hall, you’ll find a large room at the end of the hall with a wide fish-tank-like window. 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The conference is part of the broader <em>Issues in Political Economy<\/em> journal, an undergraduate research publication jointly edited by students from the University of Mary Washington and Elon University. In addition to presenting at the conference, University of Mary Washington students also contribute to the journal as associate editors and reviewers, playing an active role in the academic publication process.<\/p><p>The IPE Conference brings together undergraduate researchers from across the United States to present original economic research on a wide range of topics. The event provides students with the opportunity to engage with peers and faculty, receive constructive feedback, and refine their analytical and presentation skills in a professional academic setting.<\/p><p>Schlechty and Ballard presented research developed in ECON 361: Intro to Econometrics, taught by Dr. Amrita Dhar. Dr. Dhar also served as the students’ faculty mentor throughout the conference, supporting them as they prepared and delivered their presentations.<\/p><p>Schlechty presented <em>The Impact of School Rankings on Housing Distribution<\/em>, while Ballard presented <em>The Effectiveness of Prevention Methods on DUI Offenses<\/em>. Their participation in the conference highlights the strength of the econometrics program and the opportunities available to students to conduct meaningful, data-driven research.<\/p><p>In addition to participating in the conference, Schlechty and Ballard spent time connecting with fellow undergraduate researchers, including an evening chatting with presenters from across the United States. This opportunity allowed them to network and build valuable academic and professional connections. They also explored New York City, visiting notable landmarks such as Wall Street and Times Square, and taking a ferry to Brooklyn. These experiences complemented their academic work, allowing them to engage with both the professional and cultural aspects of the city.<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_736\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-736\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-736\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/ee16c528-99a7-4c4a-8be3-9da003f7396a.jpg\" alt=\"Students and faculty in front of screen at conference presentation\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/ee16c528-99a7-4c4a-8be3-9da003f7396a.jpg 640w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/ee16c528-99a7-4c4a-8be3-9da003f7396a-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-736\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Josiah Schlechty, Dr. Amrita Dhar, and Tressa Ballard at the 2026 Issues in Political Economy Conference<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On February 27, economics students Josiah Schlechty (Economics and Accounting ’26) and Tressa Ballard (Applied Economics and Classical Studies ’28) traveled to New York City to attend the 33rd annual Issues in Political Economy (IPE) Conference. The conference is part of the broader Issues in Political Economy journal, an undergraduate research publication jointly edited by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-sciences","8":"category-undergraduate-research","9":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UMW Econ Students Present Their Research at NYC Conference - Beyond the Classroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/03\/27\/umw-econ-students\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UMW Econ Students Present Their Research at NYC Conference\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On February 27, economics students Josiah Schlechty (Economics and Accounting ’26) and Tressa Ballard (Applied Economics and Classical Studies ’28) traveled to New York City to attend the 33rd annual Issues in Political Economy (IPE) Conference. 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Dr. Grothe and the students are reconstructing climate conditions in the tropical Pacific using geochemistry from coral skeletons and clam shells. They presented four posters, ranging from testing new coral and clam species as climate recorders to using fossil samples to reconstruct past climate conditions before instrumental records.<\/p><hr><figure id=\"attachment_730\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-730\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-730\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image004-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Calleigh Keeley and Ned Gable present their research poster\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image004-300x225.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image004-1024x768.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image004-768x576.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image004-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image004-1140x855.jpg 1140w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image004.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-730\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Calleigh Keeley and Ned Gable present their research poster “Investigating the viability of coral species Dipsastraea specioisa and Hydnophora microconos as reliable archives of central Pacific tropical climate change…”<\/figcaption><\/figure><p class=\"x_xmsonormal\">“It was such a great experience to not only share our research with the Ocean Sciences community, but to learn and improve by seeing other studies. Being able to experience a conference, especially internationally, has been one of the highlights of my time at the University and helped to shape the scientist I hope to be!” – Calleigh Keeley<\/p><p class=\"x_xmsonormal\">“My time in UMW Individual Research has given me the opportunity to attend once in a lifetime events like the Scotland 2026 Ocean Science Meeting,  an amazing conference that gave me exposure to the scientific community, scientific communication and network building. I am grateful to my mentor, Dr. Pamela Grothe, for the opportunity to make an impact in the scientific community and build important skills that I will carry on to my career.” Ned Gable<\/p><p> <\/p><div class=\"wp-block-image\"><\/div><figure id=\"attachment_729\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-729\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-729\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image006-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Sophia Pedroza presents her poster\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image006-225x300.jpg 225w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image006-768x1024.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image006-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image006-855x1140.jpg 855w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image006.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-729\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sophia Pedroza presents her research “Validating the geochemistry from a lagoon-recovered Porytes spp. coral from Kiritimate Island for paleoclimate reconstruction”<\/figcaption><\/figure><p class=\"x_xmsonormal\">“I am grateful for both the opportunity to share the research I have done with Dr. Grothe’s lab and for the exposure to other fields in marine sciences. In particular, I was able to attend a presentation session about paleoclimate proxies that has deepened my understanding of the field and will influence my research at UMW.” Sophia Pedroza<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_728\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-728\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-728 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image005-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Ainsley Lord stands in front of her poster\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image005-225x300.jpg 225w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image005-768x1024.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image005-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image005-855x1140.jpg 855w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image005.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-728\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ainsley Lord presents her research poster “Using large skeletal architecture fossil coral rubble to reconstruct the central tropical Pacific climate”<\/figcaption><\/figure><p class=\"x_xmsonormal\">“Being able to travel and present my research has made me feel more confident in my ability to communicate science and network with people outside of Mary Washingtons network. My overall experience at AGU made me feel more confident in a science centered space, and being able to talk with people who I had met at previous conferences helped me realize that people remembered our research and wanted to share in the excitement of new findings we had made.” Ainsley Lord<\/p><p> <\/p><blockquote>\n<p class=\"x_xmsonormal\">“My experience at the conference was amazing! Not only did it help my skills are a presenter but as a learner as well. With every person I talk to on my research I felt myself grow in confidence. Allowing me to take in all feedback given and consider it for future references. While listening to others speak, I learned how to ask meaningful questions to better understand their work. This trip not only grew me as a student\/researcher but as a person as well. It really reaffirmed my path of being in research and makes me want to continue my studies past UMW. Dr. Grothe and all my fellow research students that went on this trip brought out a better side of me. I will always remember this experience, and what it brought. Even though it was only a few weeks ago I already miss it.” Avery Duncan<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><figure id=\"attachment_727\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-727\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-727 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image003-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Students at the poster session\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image003-1024x768.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image003-300x225.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image003-768x576.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image003-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image003-1140x855.jpg 1140w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image003.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-727\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Calleigh Keeley, Ned Gable, Ainsley Lord, Avery Duncan, Sophia Pedroza<\/figcaption><\/figure><blockquote>\n<p class=\"x_xmsonormal\">“I think the highlight of their experience was seeing my foundational work repeatedly cited by many other researchers. That puts into perspective how science works, that each new finding leads to more research questions and more discoveries. Oh, and the Scottish cows!” Dr. Pamela Grothe<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><figure id=\"attachment_732\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-732\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-732\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/1280px-Cow_on_Pupers-1024x747.jpg\" alt=\"Shaggy brown cow with long horns in a grassy field\" width=\"1024\" height=\"747\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/1280px-Cow_on_Pupers-1024x747.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/1280px-Cow_on_Pupers-300x219.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/1280px-Cow_on_Pupers-768x560.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/1280px-Cow_on_Pupers-1140x832.jpg 1140w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/1280px-Cow_on_Pupers.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-732\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Highland Cattle” Wikipedia. Accessed March 17, 2026.<\/figcaption><\/figure><p class=\"x_xmsonormal\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Five UMW undergraduate research students–Ned Gable (Environmental Science and Chemistry ’27), Calleigh Keeley (Environmental Science ’26), Ainsley Lord (Environmental Science and Conservation Biology ’26), Sophia Pedroza (Environmental Science and Conservation Biology ’26)–and their faculty mentor, Dr. Pamela Grothe, attended the American Geophysical Union’s Ocean Sciences Meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, from Feb. 22 – 27 to present their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - 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She researches women writers and gender issues in 18th- and 19th-century Spain. Among her recent publications are two books, Eve's Enlightenment: Women\u2019s Experience in Spain and Spanish America, 1726-1839(LSU Press, 2009), and Women Writers of the Spanish Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness (Ashgate, 2004), and two articles, \u201cActos de caridad: Women\u2019s Charitable Work in Eighteenth-Century Spain\u201d (2008) and \"The Sensibility of Motherhood: Josefa Amar y Borb\u00f3n\u2019s Discurso sobre la educaci\u00f3n fisica y moral de las mujeres (1790)\" (2002). Dr. Lewis was awarded a 2011-2012 Mary Washington Faculty Development Grant for the project \u201cWomen and Charity in Spain, 1786-1939,\" a digital humantities project that she is completing with a team of undergradueate research students. She is a member of the Modern Language Association of America, the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Ibero American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Sociedad Espa\u00f1ol de Estudios del Dieciocho.","sameAs":["http:\/\/elewis.umwblogs.org\/","\/profile\/view?id=53051021","https:\/\/x.com\/elewisumw"],"url":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/author\/elewisumw-edu\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/image001.jpg","acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":720,"date":"2026-03-12T13:46:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/?p=720"},"modified":"2026-03-12T14:26:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:26:38","slug":"umw-students-participate-in-scholars-transforming-through-research-str-curs-advocacy-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/03\/12\/umw-students-participate-in-scholars-transforming-through-research-str-curs-advocacy-program\/","title":{"rendered":"UMW students participate in Scholars Transforming through Research (STR), CUR’s Advocacy Program`"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><p>For the first time, a team of undergraduate researchers in the Biological Sciences from the University of Mary Washington participated in the Scholars Transforming through Research Advocacy Program, through Council for Undergraduate Research. <span data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">Throughout the academic year, students Lillian Burbulis (BIOL ’26), Tyler Downs (<\/span>BIOL ’26), Brooke Martin (BMED ’27), and Abby Powers (BMED ’27), along with their faculty mentor Dr. Laura Sipe, participated in training sessions that built skills in scientific communication and taught them how to advocate for undergraduate research. UMW was one of two <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cur.org\/cur-releases-2025-str-program-participants\/\">Virginia universities<\/a> that participated in this national program.<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_722\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-722\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-722 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-group-photo-March-2026-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Students and professor pose in front of the STR banner, which reads cholars Transforming through Research Advocacy Program, through Council for Undergraduate Research. Home of civically engaged researchers\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-group-photo-March-2026-768x1024.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-group-photo-March-2026-225x300.jpg 225w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-group-photo-March-2026-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-group-photo-March-2026-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-group-photo-March-2026-855x1140.jpg 855w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-group-photo-March-2026-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-722\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">UMW biology students Brooke Martin, Abby Powers, Lillian Burbulis, Tyler Downs, and Dr. Laura Sipe<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Over spring break, March 2-3, 2026, the students visited the Capitol and met with Virginia legislators to advocate for undergraduate research at UMW. First, students met with Amber Townes, the legislative aide for Congressman Eugene Vindman. They thanked Congressman Vindman for his continued support of the University of Mary Washington, higher education, and scientific research. Students shared how their undergraduate research experiences have shaped their education at UMW and discussed how research prepares them for the workforce in Virginia.<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_721\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-721\" style=\"width: 2560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-721 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-Group-Vindman-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Students and congressional aide pose in front of Rep. Eugene Vindman's capitol hill office door with a US flag in the background,\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-Group-Vindman-scaled.jpg 2560w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-Group-Vindman-300x225.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-Group-Vindman-1024x768.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-Group-Vindman-768x576.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-Group-Vindman-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-Group-Vindman-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-Group-Vindman-1140x855.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-721\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tyler Downs, Lillian Burbulis, Brooke Martin, Abby Powers and legislative aide Amber Townes in front of US Rep. Eugene Vindman’s Office.<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Next, students met with Anel Galvez, the education legislative fellow for Tim Kaine. A STR group from Radford joined this meeting. Together, the students demonstrated the breadth of undergraduate research conducted across Virginia. They spoke about the opportunities that undergraduate research has opened for them, the hard and soft skills they have developed, and the importance of funding to support these experiences.<\/p><p>While at the Capital, we saw many other advocacy groups, advocating for medical research funding for Colon Cancer and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This experience opened up this whole other side to research and scientific careers. Most importantly, it built confidence in the students as they advocated for the undergraduate research that has been so important to their education at UMW.<\/p><blockquote><p>The <span class=\"markzw5sxabk5\" data-markjs=\"true\" data-ogac=\"\" data-ogab=\"\" data-ogsc=\"\" data-ogsb=\"\">STRS<\/span> program provided us with an experience to voice the importance of undergraduate research at UMW. As a collective, we shared the depth and variety of research that is being conducted in the biological science department, and we showed how this research benefits the Fredericksburg community and beyond. This program pushed me out of my comfort zone in the best way. It gave me an outlet to push my limits while having the safety of talking about a research experience that I deeply value and has changed the trajectory of my life for the better. I hope that providing effective logic and data while displaying our passion and drive has left a lasting impact on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n<p>Abby Powers (BMED ’27)<\/p><\/blockquote><figure id=\"attachment_723\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-723\" style=\"width: 1920px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-723\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-capitol-hill-March-2026-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Students pose outside on the steps of the capitol with the capitol dome in the background\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-capitol-hill-March-2026-scaled.jpg 1920w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-capitol-hill-March-2026-225x300.jpg 225w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-capitol-hill-March-2026-768x1024.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-capitol-hill-March-2026-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-capitol-hill-March-2026-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-capitol-hill-March-2026-855x1140.jpg 855w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-723\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brooke Martin, Lillian Burbulis, Abby Powers, and Tyler Downs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, a team of undergraduate researchers in the Biological Sciences from the University of Mary Washington participated in the Scholars Transforming through Research Advocacy Program, through Council for Undergraduate Research. Throughout the academic year, students Lillian Burbulis (BIOL ’26), Tyler Downs (BIOL ’26), Brooke Martin (BMED ’27), and Abby Powers (BMED ’27), along […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-stem","8":"category-undergraduate-research","9":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UMW students participate in Scholars Transforming through Research (STR), CUR's Advocacy Program` - Beyond the Classroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/03\/12\/umw-students-participate-in-scholars-transforming-through-research-str-curs-advocacy-program\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UMW students participate in Scholars Transforming through Research (STR), CUR's Advocacy Program`\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For the first time, a team of undergraduate researchers in the Biological Sciences from the University of Mary Washington participated in the Scholars Transforming through Research Advocacy Program, through Council for Undergraduate Research. 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She researches women writers and gender issues in 18th- and 19th-century Spain. Among her recent publications are two books, Eve's Enlightenment: Women\u2019s Experience in Spain and Spanish America, 1726-1839(LSU Press, 2009), and Women Writers of the Spanish Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness (Ashgate, 2004), and two articles, \u201cActos de caridad: Women\u2019s Charitable Work in Eighteenth-Century Spain\u201d (2008) and \"The Sensibility of Motherhood: Josefa Amar y Borb\u00f3n\u2019s Discurso sobre la educaci\u00f3n fisica y moral de las mujeres (1790)\" (2002). Dr. Lewis was awarded a 2011-2012 Mary Washington Faculty Development Grant for the project \u201cWomen and Charity in Spain, 1786-1939,\" a digital humantities project that she is completing with a team of undergradueate research students. She is a member of the Modern Language Association of America, the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Ibero American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Sociedad Espa\u00f1ol de Estudios del Dieciocho.","sameAs":["http:\/\/elewis.umwblogs.org\/","\/profile\/view?id=53051021","https:\/\/x.com\/elewisumw"],"url":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/author\/elewisumw-edu\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/03\/STR-capitol-hill-March-2026-scaled.jpg","acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":714,"date":"2026-02-27T10:51:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T15:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/?p=714"},"modified":"2026-03-20T13:04:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T17:04:24","slug":"basque-loanwords-study-abroad-inspires-ethnolinguistic-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/basque-loanwords-study-abroad-inspires-ethnolinguistic-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Basque Loanwords: Study abroad inspires ethnolinguistic research"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><p>Wiley Prior (Spanish 2026) spent Spring semester 2025 in Bilbao, Spain, as part of the UMW study abroad program there. Wiley, who is a Spanish major, enjoyed interacting with the Basque people, taking in as much as possible. In addition to further developing his skills in Spanish, he also experienced the vitality of the Basque language, and witnessed how intertwined Spanish and Basque culture are. Upon returning to UMW, he decided to pursue an independent study (SPAN 491) on the loanwords that Spanish has taken from Basque, with faculty mentor Dr. Gonzalo Campos-Dintrans.<\/p><p>His work during Fall 2025 involved researching about the history of the Basque people and their language. Connecting his experience in Bilbao to his academic work during the semester, Wiley and Dr Campos-Dintrans decided to create a podcast-style project in which they discussed language contact, especially between Spanish and Basque, but also making connections to other language contact situations. Wiley’s final product, titled “Préstamos del Eusquera” involved both an audio and video production of their conversation in Spanish and is now available <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/c89X2cCznO8?si=gPfya3gWnWZ0Ecbl\">on Youtube.<\/a><\/p><figure id=\"attachment_715\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-715\" style=\"width: 802px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-715\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Picture1_Gonzalo-Campos-Dintr.png\" alt=\"Podcast interview between Dr. Campos and Wiley Prior\" width=\"802\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Picture1_Gonzalo-Campos-Dintr.png 802w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Picture1_Gonzalo-Campos-Dintr-300x187.png 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Picture1_Gonzalo-Campos-Dintr-768x479.png 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Picture1_Gonzalo-Campos-Dintr-250x155.png 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 802px) 100vw, 802px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-715\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Gonzalo Campos-Dintrans and Wiley Prior record their podcast “Préstamos del Eusquera”<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Wiley posits that through loanwords we can learn about the relationship between two ethnolinguistic groups, and that what makes the Basque language so interesting is not so much the fact that it is an isolate language, but rather, the fact that its speakers have been able to maintain their language for millennia.<\/p><blockquote><p>While studying abroad in Bilbao, I learned a great deal about the Basque country, its people and its language. During Fall 2025, I started my Independent study looking at loan words between Spanish and Basque, and it has been incredibly satisfying to put together my experience abroad with my academic work at UMW<\/p><\/blockquote><figure id=\"attachment_716\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-716\" style=\"width: 533px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-716\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Picture3_Gonzalo-Campos-Dintr.png\" alt=\"Wiley Prior holding a camera in the recording studio\" width=\"533\" height=\"715\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Picture3_Gonzalo-Campos-Dintr.png 533w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Picture3_Gonzalo-Campos-Dintr-224x300.png 224w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 533px) 100vw, 533px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-716\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Wiley Prior (Spanish 2026)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wiley Prior (Spanish 2026) spent Spring semester 2025 in Bilbao, Spain, as part of the UMW study abroad program there. Wiley, who is a Spanish major, enjoyed interacting with the Basque people, taking in as much as possible. In addition to further developing his skills in Spanish, he also experienced the vitality of the Basque […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10,30,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-humanities","8":"category-study-abroad","9":"category-undergraduate-research","10":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Basque Loanwords: Study abroad inspires ethnolinguistic research - Beyond the Classroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/basque-loanwords-study-abroad-inspires-ethnolinguistic-research\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Basque Loanwords: Study abroad inspires ethnolinguistic research\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Wiley Prior (Spanish 2026) spent Spring semester 2025 in Bilbao, Spain, as part of the UMW study abroad program there. 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She researches women writers and gender issues in 18th- and 19th-century Spain. Among her recent publications are two books, Eve's Enlightenment: Women\u2019s Experience in Spain and Spanish America, 1726-1839(LSU Press, 2009), and Women Writers of the Spanish Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness (Ashgate, 2004), and two articles, \u201cActos de caridad: Women\u2019s Charitable Work in Eighteenth-Century Spain\u201d (2008) and \"The Sensibility of Motherhood: Josefa Amar y Borb\u00f3n\u2019s Discurso sobre la educaci\u00f3n fisica y moral de las mujeres (1790)\" (2002). Dr. Lewis was awarded a 2011-2012 Mary Washington Faculty Development Grant for the project \u201cWomen and Charity in Spain, 1786-1939,\" a digital humantities project that she is completing with a team of undergradueate research students. 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Her independent research, conducted under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Sipe, investigates whether a common antidiabetic drug, metformin, can pharmacologically trigger a self-eating process called autophagy in triple negative breast cancer cells and that, when combined with a platinum-based chemotherapy named either cisplatin or oxaliplatin, this process promotes immunogenic cell death. Ultimately, this combination treatment will augment antitumor immune responses that have been observed in a previous in-vivo study done through the 2025 Summer Science Institute at UMW with chemotherapy treatment alone on triple negative breast cancer cells.<\/p><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-712\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Sofia-Szczepankiewicz-in-the-lab-199x300.png\" alt=\"Sofia Szczepankiewicz works in the lab\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Sofia-Szczepankiewicz-in-the-lab-199x300.png 199w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Sofia-Szczepankiewicz-in-the-lab.png 274w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\"><\/p><p>Her project investigates a therapeutic strategy to not only induce death, but to also limit tumor recurrence in triple negative breast cancer cells. Triple negative breast cancer is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer with limited options for treatment. Cancer, in all types, has a troublesome ability to evade detection from the immune system. One way to prevent tumor recurrence is by engaging the immune system, enabling it to recognize and exterminate cancer cells that may grow into a tumor. Immunogenic cell death is a certain type of cell death that calls upon the immune system, which is the body’s primary defense mechanism against harmful substances, responsible for a cascade of events that detect and eliminate foreign cells such as cancer.<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_711\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-711\" style=\"width: 265px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-711\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Sofia-Szczepankiewicz-1.png\" alt=\"Sofia Szczepankiewicz standing by her research poster\" width=\"265\" height=\"365\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Sofia-Szczepankiewicz-1.png 724w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Sofia-Szczepankiewicz-1-218x300.png 218w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 265px) 100vw, 265px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-711\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sofia Szczepankiewicz presents her research project “Wanted: Dead and Immunogenic.”<\/figcaption><\/figure><p> <\/p><p> <\/p><p>Sofia’s work was presented at: Honors Senior Capstone Fall 2025 Symposium at UMW, Jepson Science Symposium Fall 2025 at UMW, 2025 Fall Undergraduate Research Meeting For the Virginia Academy of Sciences at VSU. She will also present later this spring at the 2026  Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Research Symposium, and at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) 2026 in Richmond, VA.<\/p><p>Sofia was awarded the Irene Piscopo Rodgers ’59 and James D. Rodgers Student Research Fellowship II scholarship at UMW for the 2025-2026 school year to do this research during her senior year.<\/p><blockquote><p>Research at UMW has singlehandedly transformed my experience as an undergraduate. Being involved with a tissue culture lab has given me direct exposure to how class concepts have practical application. As I move onward from UMW to pursue further education, I am thankful for the foundation that this independent research has made for my future career as a pharmacist.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>And she is one step closer to that future career. After being accepted to all of the pharmacy programs where she applied, Sofia has decided to attend the Hampton University School of Pharmacy next fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senior Sofia Szczepankiewicz (Biomedical Sciences ’26) wants to help cure cancer. Her independent research, conducted under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Sipe, investigates whether a common antidiabetic drug, metformin, can pharmacologically trigger a self-eating process called autophagy in triple negative breast cancer cells and that, when combined with a platinum-based chemotherapy named either cisplatin or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[31,2,1,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-after-mary-washington","8":"category-stem","9":"category-uncategorized","10":"category-undergraduate-research","11":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Wanted: Dead and Immunogenic: Investigating a therapeutic strategy to induce death in breast cancer - Beyond the Classroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wanted: Dead and Immunogenic: Investigating a therapeutic strategy to induce death in breast cancer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Senior Sofia Szczepankiewicz (Biomedical Sciences ’26) wants to help cure cancer. Her independent research, conducted under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Sipe, investigates whether a common antidiabetic drug, metformin, can pharmacologically trigger a self-eating process called autophagy in triple negative breast cancer cells and that, when combined with a platinum-based chemotherapy named either cisplatin or […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond the Classroom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-27T13:30:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-27T15:17:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Sofia-Szczepankiewicz-in-the-lab.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"274\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"414\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Betsy Lewis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@elewisumw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Betsy Lewis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Betsy Lewis\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/#\/schema\/person\/9812676b71cb619610983e0f46c4d4cb\"},\"headline\":\"Wanted: Dead and Immunogenic: Investigating a therapeutic strategy to induce death in breast cancer\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-27T13:30:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-27T15:17:47+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/\"},\"wordCount\":437,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Sofia-Szczepankiewicz-in-the-lab.png\",\"articleSection\":{\"0\":\"After Mary Washington\",\"1\":\"STEM\",\"3\":\"Undergraduate Research\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/02\/27\/wanted-dead-and-immunogenic-investigating-a-therapeutic-strategy-to-induce-death-in-breast-cancer\/\",\"name\":\"Wanted: Dead and Immunogenic: Investigating a therapeutic strategy to induce death in breast cancer - 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The AI works by first scanning chatrooms and detecting posts that contain misinformation, misrepresentation, toxicity, fallacious reasoning, gender bias, or racial bias. Once this “cooling” AI has detected one of these unproductive aspects, it generates a response that is intended to neutralize the effects of the unproductive dialogue and moderate the conversation. This response methodology is called counter speech and is a relatively new topic in natural language processing (NLP).<\/p><p>An experiment was conducted in the Fall 2025 semester to examine the effectiveness of the AI, which had UMW student volunteer participants complete surveys and interact with the cooling AI named “FroBot” in a private chatroom with an initial political topic given as a prompt. Also present in the chat room were the “HotBot” AI and the “CoolBot” AI, intended to create unproductive posts and neutral posts, respectively. All three of these bots were built off Gemini2.5-Flash through VertexAI and taught on a mix of handmade and collected data. The experiment found that the “FroBot” was moderately effective in helping to cool the conversation when the “HotBot” made a post that was inflammatory. However, participants reported several instances of the AIs going off script by generating long paragraphs, odd sentences, and text announcing that they were AI.<\/p><p>Analysis of these results and possible continued experiments are planned for the Spring 2026 semester. Also planned for the Spring 2026 semester is a simulation-based experiment that will observe the effectiveness of the “FroBot” in a large-scale agent-based modeling (ABM) system. This system will use many AIs, each trained to mimic real-life social media users to simulate online interactions. The “FroBot” will be deployed into this simulation to see how it affects the conversations between the AI agents of the model.<\/p><blockquote><p>Learning how to fine-tune and prompt engineer large-language models through this project has been a blast. Further, working with the research team has been a great experience and has taught me a lot about effective teamwork. (Garrett McKenzie)”<\/p>\n<p>This project has provided me the opportunity to explore the field of data science in greater depth by working with large language models, particularly through examining the fine-tuning process and evaluating the many considerations involved in creating effective training datasets. (Bethanie Hackett)<\/p>\n<p>I enjoyed seeing the different aspects of our project that we worked on throughout the semester come together while running the experiment sessions, including our work fine-tuning the bots, creating the chatroom and database interfaces, and designing the experiment itself. (Laura Rider)<\/p>\n<p>Bethanie, Laura, and Garrett have designed a sensational experimental, and have fine-tuned the Gemini AI model using the latest technologies and best practices. It’s pretty amazing how lifelike it seems when ‘chatting’ with it, and how good a job it does of refocusing unproductive conversation! I look forward to continue to working with these talented students on the data analysis and simulation phases of the project. (Dr. Stephen Davies)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_705\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-705\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-705\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/in_action_Garrett-Mckenzie-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Professor Davies, standing, consults with students Garret Mackenzie and Bethany Hacket as they work on their computers.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/in_action_Garrett-Mckenzie-1024x768.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/in_action_Garrett-Mckenzie-300x225.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/in_action_Garrett-Mckenzie-768x576.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/in_action_Garrett-Mckenzie-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/in_action_Garrett-Mckenzie-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/in_action_Garrett-Mckenzie-1140x855.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-705\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dr. Stephen Davies, Garrett McKenzie, and Bethanie Hackett consult on the Frozone AI project<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/blockquote><p>This research was presented at the Network for Undergraduate Research in Virginia Conference hosted at the University of Mary Washington in November, 2025. The students and Dr. Davies are working to produce a published paper to submit for potential publication in a peer-reviewed journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A look at the headlines in the news, or even just scrolling our personal social media feeds, it is evident that online political discussions are fraught with problems from misinformation to toxic exchanges between users.  For the past two semesters, students Garrett McKenzie (Data Science and Computer Science ’27), Laura Rider (Engligh Lit and Computer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-sciences","8":"category-stem","9":"category-undergraduate-research","10":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - 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And how can a student of poetry clarify patient care for medical clinicians? Rebecca Cherian (Class of 2026), a major in Biomedical Sciences and minor in English, might answer in one word: Consilience. Consilience is the strong concurrence of two or more disciplines, or unrelated sources or data sets, on a meaningful insight. It is also the name of the podcast that she produced during an independent study in Fall 2025 with Dr. Mara Scanlon, Professor of English.<\/p><p>The project in Medical Humanities was also Rebecca’s Honors capstone for the UMW Honors Program. Rebecca plans to attend The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences next fall, and her concern for patient care and love of poetry from coursework in English were the driving forces behind her project. Reading deeply in poetry anthologies that collect works by patients and family members about their illnesses and experiences in the biomedical system, and by clinicians as well, she identified three topics that she wished to explore in her podcast episodes: patient\/provider interactions; the lived experience of illness; and the humanization of patients in clinical care. Overall, Consilience advocates that encountering the diverse voices, stories, and emotions of human beings through poetry could help providers counter what Rebecca describes as the “decline of clinical empathy and patient humanization, which has, at times, led to decreased quality of care.”<\/p><p>Though new to podcasting, Rebecca learned the system in the HCC recording studio and editing techniques; in addition to providing a new challenge, podcasting seemed like way to make her project more accessible and portable, especially since one of its intended audiences is future and current clinicians. She drafted guest readers for the poems in each episode (Dr. Scanlon and two student members of UMW’s Fine Print Club), and a friend also composed and recorded the podcast’s musical theme.<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_702\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-702\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-702\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-recording_Mara-Scanlon-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Rebecca Cherian with equipment in the recording studio to record her podcast Concilience\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-recording_Mara-Scanlon-768x1024.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-recording_Mara-Scanlon-225x300.jpg 225w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-recording_Mara-Scanlon-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-recording_Mara-Scanlon-855x1140.jpg 855w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-recording_Mara-Scanlon.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-702\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rebecca Cherian in the recording studio<\/figcaption><\/figure><blockquote><p>This project has given me the opportunity to meaningfully combine my scientific and literary interests. By doing so, I’ve learned the value of interdisciplinary study and how people in all fields can benefit from this approach.<\/p><\/blockquote><p>Rebecca presented this project to students, faculty, and guests in December 2025 at the Honors Symposium, but <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/1MesUOjrt1D7zIuLOqe3B2?si=6408a20062b445ac\">Consilience is available on Spotify<\/a> for any interested listeners.<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_701\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-701\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-701\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-presenting_Mara-Scanlon-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Rebecca Cherian presents her research at the Honors Symposium. There is a title presentation slide that introduces her topic of medical humanities and her podcast Concilience\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-presenting_Mara-Scanlon-1024x768.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-presenting_Mara-Scanlon-300x225.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-presenting_Mara-Scanlon-768x576.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-presenting_Mara-Scanlon-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-presenting_Mara-Scanlon-1140x855.jpg 1140w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/02\/Rebecca-presenting_Mara-Scanlon.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-701\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rebecca Cherian presents at the Honors Capstone Symposium, December 2025<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why might lovers of literature listen to what a student headed to medical school says about poetry? 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She found that while attention to women’s history in Virginia has significantly improved, women remain substantially underrepresented.<\/p><p>Nick examined the legacy of UMW’s desegregation through the lens of the university’s interpretive plaques, evaluating how institutional memory is constructed and communicated. He found the university’s efforts to be surprisingly transparent and accurate to the historical record. He also uncovered evidence suggesting that UMW’s gender integration may have drawn attention away from its racial integration.<\/p><p>Tyler explored the evolving meanings of Confederate symbology, highlighting tensions between heritage, history, and identity across different eras. He found that the landscape of Confederate memory is incredibly complex, blending white supremacist ideology with political expediency and Southern identity.<\/p><p>Taken together, these projects demonstrate the central role of historical memory in education and civic life and illustrate how public narratives about the past influence what communities value, question, or forget.<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wpa-warning wpa-suspicious-alt alignright size-large wp-image-698\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/NCSS-2025-History-Wars-Poster-1024x805.png\" alt=\"Image of student poster for the History Wars with photos and text\" width=\"1024\" height=\"805\" data-warning=\"Suspicious alt text\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/NCSS-2025-History-Wars-Poster-1024x805.png 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/NCSS-2025-History-Wars-Poster-300x236.png 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/NCSS-2025-History-Wars-Poster-768x604.png 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/NCSS-2025-History-Wars-Poster-1536x1207.png 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/NCSS-2025-History-Wars-Poster-2048x1610.png 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/NCSS-2025-History-Wars-Poster-1140x896.png 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/div><p>The three students continued their work with Dr. Honold in the fall of 2025 to hone their research and prepare to present their findings collaboratively on a shared poster titled “Teaching the ‘History Wars’: Equipping Students to Critically Engage with Historical Narratives” at the 2025 National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference, held in December in Washington, D.C. In conversations with conference attendees, they articulated the implications of their research for history teachers and education researchers—especially the need to help students critically examine whose stories are amplified, whose are marginalized, and how representations of the past shape contemporary debates.<\/p><figure id=\"attachment_696\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-696\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-696 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Tyler Crockett (Historic Preservation '28), Nick Thodal (History '28), Dr. Alex Honald, and Sarah Yatzeck (History '28) at the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Washington, DC.\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-1024x768.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-300x225.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-768x576.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-1140x855.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-696\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tyler Crockett (Historic Preservation ’28), Nick Thodal (History ’28), Dr. Alex Honold, and Sarah Yatzeck (History ’28) at the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Washington, DC.<\/figcaption><\/figure><p>The students agreed that presenting their research to a wider audience than their classroom was a formative experience:<\/p><blockquote><p>“It was a great opportunity to practice my presentation skills and get feedback on my research from the broader professional community.” (Sarah Yatzeck)<\/p>\n<p>“It was a great experience not only to present my own research, but to get to hear some very interesting presentations from others that will no doubt serve me well in my future classroom.” (Nick Thodal)<\/p>\n<p>“It was a really enlightening experience. I’d never been to a professional conference like that before. To have the first one I’d ever been to also be one I was presenting at was a particularly unique experience. It was an invaluable networking experience. I was able to speak to and make connections with multiple representatives from various museums and got information on future internship possibilities.” (Tyler Crockett)<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_695\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-695\" style=\"width: 1024px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-695 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0356_Alex-Honold-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Students present their research at the Social Studies Conference\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0356_Alex-Honold-1024x768.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0356_Alex-Honold-300x225.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0356_Alex-Honold-768x576.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0356_Alex-Honold-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0356_Alex-Honold-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0356_Alex-Honold-1140x855.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-695\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Yatzeck (History ’28), Tyler Crockett (Historic Preservation ’28), and Nick Thodal (History ’28) present at the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Washington, DC. in December 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><\/div>\n<p> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In their fall 2024 FSEM “History Wars: Schools, Museums, and Monuments”–taught by Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Alex Honold–Tyler Crockett (Historic Preservation ’28), Nick Thodal (History ’28), and Sarah Yatzeck (History ’28) conducted original research on distinct historical or contemporary representations of the past as they appear in schools, public spaces, or popular media.Sarah analyzed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"category-humanities","9":"category-social-sciences","10":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - 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She researches women writers and gender issues in 18th- and 19th-century Spain. Among her recent publications are two books, Eve's Enlightenment: Women\u2019s Experience in Spain and Spanish America, 1726-1839(LSU Press, 2009), and Women Writers of the Spanish Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness (Ashgate, 2004), and two articles, \u201cActos de caridad: Women\u2019s Charitable Work in Eighteenth-Century Spain\u201d (2008) and \\\"The Sensibility of Motherhood: Josefa Amar y Borb\u00f3n\u2019s Discurso sobre la educaci\u00f3n fisica y moral de las mujeres (1790)\\\" (2002). Dr. Lewis was awarded a 2011-2012 Mary Washington Faculty Development Grant for the project \u201cWomen and Charity in Spain, 1786-1939,\\\" a digital humantities project that she is completing with a team of undergradueate research students. She is a member of the Modern Language Association of America, the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Ibero American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Sociedad Espa\u00f1ol de Estudios del Dieciocho.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/elewis.umwblogs.org\/\",\"\/profile\/view?id=53051021\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/elewisumw\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/author\/elewisumw-edu\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Critically Engaging Students with Historical Narratives in the \"History Wars\" - Beyond the Classroom","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Critically Engaging Students with Historical Narratives in the \"History Wars\"","og_description":"In their fall 2024 FSEM “History Wars: Schools, Museums, and Monuments”–taught by Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Alex Honold–Tyler Crockett (Historic Preservation ’28), Nick Thodal (History ’28), and Sarah Yatzeck (History ’28) conducted original research on distinct historical or contemporary representations of the past as they appear in schools, public spaces, or popular media.Sarah analyzed […]","og_url":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/","og_site_name":"Beyond the Classroom","article_published_time":"2026-01-13T18:25:10+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-01-15T17:10:38+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1920,"url":"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Betsy Lewis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@elewisumw","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Betsy Lewis","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/"},"author":{"name":"Betsy Lewis","@id":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/#\/schema\/person\/9812676b71cb619610983e0f46c4d4cb"},"headline":"Critically Engaging Students with Historical Narratives in the “History Wars”","datePublished":"2026-01-13T18:25:10+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-15T17:10:38+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/"},"wordCount":551,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-scaled.jpg","articleSection":["Education","Humanities","Social Sciences"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/","url":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2026\/01\/13\/equipping-students-to-critically-engage-with-historical-narratives\/","name":"Critically Engaging Students with Historical Narratives in the \"History Wars\" - 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She researches women writers and gender issues in 18th- and 19th-century Spain. Among her recent publications are two books, Eve's Enlightenment: Women\u2019s Experience in Spain and Spanish America, 1726-1839(LSU Press, 2009), and Women Writers of the Spanish Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness (Ashgate, 2004), and two articles, \u201cActos de caridad: Women\u2019s Charitable Work in Eighteenth-Century Spain\u201d (2008) and \"The Sensibility of Motherhood: Josefa Amar y Borb\u00f3n\u2019s Discurso sobre la educaci\u00f3n fisica y moral de las mujeres (1790)\" (2002). Dr. Lewis was awarded a 2011-2012 Mary Washington Faculty Development Grant for the project \u201cWomen and Charity in Spain, 1786-1939,\" a digital humantities project that she is completing with a team of undergradueate research students. She is a member of the Modern Language Association of America, the American Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Ibero American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Sociedad Espa\u00f1ol de Estudios del Dieciocho.","sameAs":["http:\/\/elewis.umwblogs.org\/","\/profile\/view?id=53051021","https:\/\/x.com\/elewisumw"],"url":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/author\/elewisumw-edu\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2026\/01\/IMG_0349_Alex-Honold-scaled.jpg","acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1691"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":674,"date":"2025-10-08T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T15:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/?p=674"},"modified":"2025-10-09T10:29:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:29:52","slug":"umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/","title":{"rendered":"UMW opens new Research and Creativity Collaborative"},"content":{"rendered":"<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><p>The University of Mary Washington recently introduced its new space highlighting the importance of undergraduate research and creativity at UMW, the<strong> UMW Research and Creativity Collaborative<\/strong> (or RCC for short). <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-682\" src=\"http:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_4260-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"UMW Research and Creativity Collaborative space\" width=\"381\" height=\"508\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_4260-768x1024.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_4260-225x300.jpg 225w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_4260-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_4260-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_4260-855x1140.jpg 855w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/IMG_4260-scaled.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 381px) 100vw, 381px\">The RCC is:<\/p><ul>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props='{\"335552541\":1,\"335559685\":720,\"335559991\":360,\"469769226\":\"Symbol\",\"469769242\":[8226],\"469777803\":\"left\",\"469777804\":\"\",\"469777815\":\"hybridMultilevel\"}' data-aria-posinset=\"1\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">a physical space<\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> on the main floor of Simpson Library that supports student research and creativity where students and faculty can meet, participate in events and workshops, learn about opportunities, or just hang out in a comfortable setting<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><ul>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props='{\"335552541\":1,\"335559685\":720,\"335559991\":360,\"469769226\":\"Symbol\",\"469769242\":[8226],\"469777803\":\"left\",\"469777804\":\"\",\"469777815\":\"hybridMultilevel\"}' data-aria-posinset=\"2\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">a virtual space<\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> on the UMW website for current and prospective students, and for faculty mentors, with information about student research and creativity, resources for faculty mentoring students in research and creative projects, and information about funding available and how to apply.  <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/academics.umw.edu\/rcc\/\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">https:\/\/academics.umw.edu\/rcc\/<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> <\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><ul>\n<li aria-setsize=\"-1\" data-leveltext=\"\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1\" data-list-defn-props='{\"335552541\":1,\"335559685\":720,\"335559991\":360,\"469769226\":\"Symbol\",\"469769242\":[8226],\"469777803\":\"left\",\"469777804\":\"\",\"469777815\":\"hybridMultilevel\"}' data-aria-posinset=\"3\" data-aria-level=\"1\"><b><span data-contrast=\"auto\">a group of student researchers and their faculty mentors<\/span><\/b><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> who believe in the formative and transformative impact of research and creativity and who come together to support and promote it at UMW<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\"> <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><p>An Open House event on October 1, 2025, officially introduced the campus community to the RCC. It featured students and their work: paintings by <a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/09\/30\/umw-student-practices-the-art-of-plein-air-painting-in-france\/\">art major Madison Hinton<\/a>, as well as the winning posters from the 2025 Irene Piscopo Rodgers ’59 Summer Science Institute by <a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/07\/28\/summer-science-2025-symposium-winners\/\">earth and environmental science majors Joey Gasink and Summer Orledge<\/a>. Attendees were also able to browse  <a href=\"https:\/\/youtube.com\/playlist?list=PL1Gpnbphj1KNF-xdbLJXqeXFt-dS2aycf&si=qNT54IL7ERB7Kdp6\">student-created documentary videos<\/a> about projects from past Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Summer Institute and the Irene Piscopo Rodgers ’59 Summer Science Institute, as well as recent issues of the student-run journal <a href=\"https:\/\/umwcolumns.com\/\">Columns.<\/a> They also explored resources for students and faculty in the RCC, including a large-format poster printer, a kiosk to browse student publications on <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.umw.edu\/\">UMW Eagle Scholar, <\/a>as well as a white board, projector, and computer available for meetings and workshops.<\/p><div id=\"gallery-1\" class=\"gallery galleryid-674 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-medium\"><figure class=\"gallery-item\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"gallery-icon landscape\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/3791-k-pearlman-photography\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3791-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Browsing student publications on Eagle Scholar kiosk\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-681\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3791-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3791-K-Pearlman-Photography-1024x683.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3791-K-Pearlman-Photography-768x512.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3791-K-Pearlman-Photography-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3791-K-Pearlman-Photography-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3791-K-Pearlman-Photography-680x453.jpg 680w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3791-K-Pearlman-Photography-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text gallery-caption\" id=\"gallery-1-681\">\n\t\t\t\tDean Keith Mellinger browses student publications on Eagle Scholar kiosk\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"gallery-item\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"gallery-icon landscape\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/3561-k-pearlman-photography\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3561-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Attendees sitting at the RCC Open house\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-676\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3561-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3561-K-Pearlman-Photography-1024x683.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3561-K-Pearlman-Photography-768x512.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3561-K-Pearlman-Photography-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3561-K-Pearlman-Photography-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3561-K-Pearlman-Photography-680x453.jpg 680w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3561-K-Pearlman-Photography-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text gallery-caption\" id=\"gallery-1-676\">\n\t\t\t\tFaculty Marcus Leppanen and Randall Reif at the RCC open house\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"gallery-item\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"gallery-icon landscape\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/3750-k-pearlman-photography\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3750-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Madison Hinton speaks about her art at the RCC open house\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-680\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3750-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3750-K-Pearlman-Photography-1024x683.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3750-K-Pearlman-Photography-768x512.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3750-K-Pearlman-Photography-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3750-K-Pearlman-Photography-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3750-K-Pearlman-Photography-680x453.jpg 680w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3750-K-Pearlman-Photography-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text gallery-caption\" id=\"gallery-1-680\">\n\t\t\t\tMadison Hinton speaks about her art at the RCC open house\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"gallery-item\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"gallery-icon landscape\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/3667-k-pearlman-photography\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3667-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Summer Orledge presents her research poster at the RCC Open House\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-679\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3667-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3667-K-Pearlman-Photography-1024x683.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3667-K-Pearlman-Photography-768x512.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3667-K-Pearlman-Photography-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3667-K-Pearlman-Photography-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3667-K-Pearlman-Photography-680x453.jpg 680w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3667-K-Pearlman-Photography-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text gallery-caption\" id=\"gallery-1-679\">\n\t\t\t\tSummer Orledge presents her research poster at the RCC open house\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"gallery-item\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"gallery-icon landscape\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/3576-k-pearlman-photography\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3576-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Student presents poster at the RCC open house\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-678\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3576-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3576-K-Pearlman-Photography-1024x683.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3576-K-Pearlman-Photography-768x512.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3576-K-Pearlman-Photography-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3576-K-Pearlman-Photography-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3576-K-Pearlman-Photography-680x453.jpg 680w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3576-K-Pearlman-Photography-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text gallery-caption\" id=\"gallery-1-678\">\n\t\t\t\tJoey Gasink presents his research at the RCC open house\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"gallery-item\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"gallery-icon landscape\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/3590-k-pearlman-photography\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3590-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Scenes from the RCC Open house\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-677\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3590-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3590-K-Pearlman-Photography-1024x683.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3590-K-Pearlman-Photography-768x512.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3590-K-Pearlman-Photography-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3590-K-Pearlman-Photography-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3590-K-Pearlman-Photography-680x453.jpg 680w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3590-K-Pearlman-Photography-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text gallery-caption\" id=\"gallery-1-677\">\n\t\t\t\tLibrarians Sarah-Kate Mills, Trish Green, and Sarah Appleby at the RCC open house\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"gallery-item\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"gallery-icon landscape\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/3802-k-pearlman-photography\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3802-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Documentary video at the RCC open house\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-684\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3802-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3802-K-Pearlman-Photography-1024x683.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3802-K-Pearlman-Photography-768x512.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3802-K-Pearlman-Photography-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3802-K-Pearlman-Photography-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3802-K-Pearlman-Photography-680x453.jpg 680w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3802-K-Pearlman-Photography-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text gallery-caption\" id=\"gallery-1-684\">\n\t\t\t\tDocumentary video at the RCC open house\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class=\"gallery-item\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"gallery-icon landscape\">\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/3634-k-pearlman-photography\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3634-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"Elizabeth Lewis talks to studio art faculty Ashe Laughlin and Jason Robison\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-683\" srcset=\"\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3634-K-Pearlman-Photography-300x200.jpg 300w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3634-K-Pearlman-Photography-1024x683.jpg 1024w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3634-K-Pearlman-Photography-768x512.jpg 768w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3634-K-Pearlman-Photography-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3634-K-Pearlman-Photography-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3634-K-Pearlman-Photography-680x453.jpg 680w, \/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/files\/2025\/10\/3634-K-Pearlman-Photography-1140x760.jpg 1140w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text gallery-caption\" id=\"gallery-1-683\">\n\t\t\t\tElizabeth Lewis talks to studio art faculty Ashe Laughlin and Jason Robison\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div><p> <\/p><p>Dr. Elizabeth Franklin Lewis, recently named Director of Undergraduate Research, oversees the RCC. She planned the space with the input of faculty and students, UMW Creative Services, and the financial support from the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business, the College of Education, Simpson Library, the Office of the Provost, as well as an Impact Grant from the UMW Foundation.<\/p><blockquote><p>The opening of the RCC has been a collective effort, and I am so excited about the broad support from across campus. The space is beautiful, and to me it is a visible reminder of the enthusiasm of our faculty, students, administrators, and staff for these transformative experiences of student research and creativity!<\/p><\/blockquote><p>The RCC opens at a time that UMW celebrates some important milestones in student research and creativity, and makes plans for new programming on the horizon. UMW will host the 6th Annual Conference for the Network for Undergraduate Research in Virginia (<a href=\"https:\/\/nurva.org\/\">NURVa<\/a>) on November 1, 2025 in the Hurley Convergence Center. UMW will celebrate the 20th year of the popular <a href=\"https:\/\/umwrcd.net\/\">UMW Research and Creativity Day Symposium<\/a> on April 24th, 2026. Recruiting is underway for the first cohort of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/piscopo-rodgers-fellows\/\">Piscopo Rodgers Science Fellows<\/a> which will begin in Fall 2026. This is in addition to the usual busy schedule of research and creative activities and symposia across campus, and continued support of student projects with funding for supplies and travel.<\/p><p>The RCC is open during regular library hours for student and faculty use. To schedule a meeting or consultation, contact Dr. Elizabeth Lewis, elewis@umw.edu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The University of Mary Washington recently introduced its new space highlighting the importance of undergraduate research and creativity at UMW, the UMW Research and Creativity Collaborative (or RCC for short). The RCC is: a physical space on the main floor of Simpson Library that supports student research and creativity where students and faculty can meet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1691,"featured_media":685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,21,10,5,2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-674","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts","8":"category-faculty-mentors","9":"category-humanities","10":"category-social-sciences","11":"category-stem","12":"category-undergraduate-research","13":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UMW opens new Research and Creativity Collaborative - Beyond the Classroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cas.umw.edu\/beyond\/2025\/10\/08\/umw-opens-new-research-and-creativity-collaborative\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"UMW opens new Research and Creativity Collaborative\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The University of Mary Washington recently introduced its new space highlighting the importance of undergraduate research and creativity at UMW, the UMW Research and Creativity Collaborative (or RCC for short). 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She researches women writers and gender issues in 18th- and 19th-century Spain. Among her recent publications are two books, Eve's Enlightenment: Women\u2019s Experience in Spain and Spanish America, 1726-1839(LSU Press, 2009), and Women Writers of the Spanish Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness (Ashgate, 2004), and two articles, \u201cActos de caridad: Women\u2019s Charitable Work in Eighteenth-Century Spain\u201d (2008) and \\\"The Sensibility of Motherhood: Josefa Amar y Borb\u00f3n\u2019s Discurso sobre la educaci\u00f3n fisica y moral de las mujeres (1790)\\\" (2002). Dr. Lewis was awarded a 2011-2012 Mary Washington Faculty Development Grant for the project \u201cWomen and Charity in Spain, 1786-1939,\\\" a digital humantities project that she is completing with a team of undergradueate research students. 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She researches women writers and gender issues in 18th- and 19th-century Spain. Among her recent publications are two books, Eve's Enlightenment: Women\u2019s Experience in Spain and Spanish America, 1726-1839(LSU Press, 2009), and Women Writers of the Spanish Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness (Ashgate, 2004), and two articles, \u201cActos de caridad: Women\u2019s Charitable Work in Eighteenth-Century Spain\u201d (2008) and \"The Sensibility of Motherhood: Josefa Amar y Borb\u00f3n\u2019s Discurso sobre la educaci\u00f3n fisica y moral de las mujeres (1790)\" (2002). Dr. Lewis was awarded a 2011-2012 Mary Washington Faculty Development Grant for the project \u201cWomen and Charity in Spain, 1786-1939,\" a digital humantities project that she is completing with a team of undergradueate research students. 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