One of the distinguishing features of COPLAC colleges is their focus on undergraduate research. Small class size, close faculty-student
interactions, and funded research opportunities allow top students to work alongside faculty mentors in significant research projects at
all 26 member institutions. COPLAC now hosts a series of regional UR conferences for students at member campuses, and many of these same
students go on to present their work at the annual meeting of the National Conference on Undergraduate Research.
Metamorphosis is part of COPLAC’s effort to highlight some of the best recent work in undergraduate research. Each semester, faculty
committees at member campuses select two outstanding projects for inclusion in Metamorphosis.
The first edition of Metamorphosis will feature papers of presenters at the Southeast Regional Undergraduate Research Conference
held November 2009.
Research papers and posters can be viewed by moving your cursor over the green categories
listed below (View All, Humanities, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Professional Programs).
View All is the default view.
The Search bar allows you to search the database by author name, topic, title or key words
within the document.
Class Creates Crash: How Poverty and Industrial Prosperity Are Degrading the Forests of Brazil and Appalachia
Tanya Widen
University of North Carolina Asheville
Mentor(s): Dr. Brian Butler
Deforestation is a perilous threat to some of the most diverse and useful habitat on earth, as well as a major factor in desertification. Understanding how people and economic inequality directly affect forest resources is vital to creating sustainable conservation that does not cause further human suffering. This paper explores reasons for deforestation in two of the most diverse biomes on earth: the Amazon rainforest of Brazil and the temperate forests of Appalachia. By using the method of literature review, it is apparent that many similarities and differences occur in land use and their effects. In both of these areas, rural and indigenous cultures have been reduced to poverty by the actions of rich multinational and/or large corporations as forest resources are milked for short-term profit. Wealthy exploitation has left behind widespread destruction and waste; while the poor also mismanage the surrounding land in their desperation to survive in an age of growing living standards. This comparison also examines how these social classes, along with the government, are involved in current sustainable efforts to conserve forest ecology for local prosperity and future generations.
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Downtown Proud
Larissa Propest
Midwestern State University
Mentor(s): n/a
My photo essay is titled, "Downtown Proud." I took pictures of the abandoned and decaying bulidings of a once booming business area in Wichita Falls, Texas. I am able to show the stark contrast of past and present business buildings with older pictures depicting their heyday. This is a social problem in many cities around the country. The allure of builidng the new and discarding the old instead of repairing it has become the new norm of the consumer society. My photo essay addresses this issue in the form of business structures.
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Environmental Transformation, Migration and Conflict: Resource and Identity Issues in Contemporary Diasporas
Anita Hagy Ferguson
Southern Oregon University
Mentor(s): Dr. Jody Waters
Multiple interrelated factors have forced migration throughout history. This study considers how resource scarcity relates to conflict, how scarcity and conflict can propel migration, and how intercultural tensions relate to conflict in sending and receiving countries.
This study further considers a possible link between climate change and conflict considering the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the posited links between climate change, resource scarcity, resource abundance and dramatic weather events.
Understanding of future climate change as it relates to conflict necessitates an examination of historic migration forces. This study, conducted from June to August 2009, reviews literature drawn from a cross-disciplinary examination of scholarly research and organizational white papers and reports from geography, political science, conflict resolution, intercultural communication and anthropology.
No direct link between climate change and conflict was confirmed in the literature but a clear connection between resource scarcity, conflict, and migration was established, as was the prominence of intercultural and political discord in resource scarcity and migration circumstances. Environmental change is likely to force migration into adjacent developing countries that are already tapped for resources rather than to countries further away which may have better capacity to handle migration, and this heightens the potential for resource-related conflict.
The existence of some commonality amongst migrational push and pull factors allows us to learn from history and present day situations. However, research findings reveal a need to develop integrated migration adaptation and mitigation strategies that address the correlative aspects of migration and conflict forces.
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Terror management in the courtroom: Capital crimes, death accessibility, & interrogation camera angle may alter conviction rates
Jacob R. Spangler
Fort Lewis College
Mentor(s): Brian L. Burke, PhD
This research examines the effects of terror management theory (TMT) and camera angle perspective on jury members. TMT states that humans defend themselves against the anxiety stemming from death awareness (mortality salience; MS) by investing in cultural worldviews, which often results in identification with similar others as well as harsh denigration of criminals. I sought to investigate whether participants’ rating of a suspect’s guilt would be influenced not only by MS but also by whether they watched a video of the suspect or the interrogator, which presumably altered their identification with the suspect. Each participant was either primed with mortality salience (MS) or a control before reading a description of a mock crime and then viewing an 80-second video clip of the beginning of an interrogation with the suspect, with the camera either focused on the suspect or the interrogator for the duration of the clip. Results of two experiments showed that, under MS, participants who watched the suspect-centered video were significantly less certain of the suspect’s guilt—and less likely to reach a unanimous guilty verdict during deliberation—than those who watched the interrogator- focused video, whereas the converse was true for the control participants. Gender also played a role in the verdicts with females finding the suspect guilty significantly more often than males. Results are discussed and directions for future research are offered.
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The Language of Home: A Cross Cultural Comparison of how Italians and Italian-Americans conceptualize “Home”
Hannah Burgwyn
University of North Carolina Asheville
Mentor(s): Dr. Heidi Kelley
This research explores the concept of how Italians and Italian-Americans construct the notion of “home”. A contribution to the Many Ways Home project, this paper offers a cross-cultural comparison. Through participant-observation and interviews with Italian-Americans in both New Jersey and Asheville, North Carolina (June to October 2008) and Italians in the Tuscan city of Siena (January to June 2009), I analyze what “home” means to my participants by examining the contributions of intersecting factors such as country of residence, socio-economic class and generation. For both groups, the concept of “home” extends beyond the physical dwelling where a person resides to a close-knit community of people. Though Italian-Americans and Italians may differ in the ways they define their “Italianess”, all see “home”, and in a larger sense “homeland” as a defining cultural trait.
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Troubled Waters: The Confluence of Local, State and Federal Environmental Policy at the Headwaters of the Dolores River, from the Height of the Cold War to 2004
Rebecca Levy
Fort Lewis College
Mentor(s): Michael Fry, PhD
Guaranteeing a sufficient supply of clean water is one of the biggest environmental problems facing the United States. This problem is dramatically exacerbated in the arid Southwest, where the limited water resources are shrinking, as demand for clean water is increasing. Compounding the problem is the environmental contamination from historic mining activities. Often located near headwaters, abandoned hard rock mines and mine waste piles deposit heavy metals into the streams and rivers of many of the western watersheds. Pollution from historic mining activities further degrades the quality of this limited resource, making the protection of clean water essential to the viability of life in the west.
The town of Rico, Colorado is situated at the headwaters of the Dolores River, a tributary to the Colorado, and is surrounded by abandoned silver, lead, zinc, gold and copper mines. Rico’s mines have been contaminating the Dolores River for over a century. Despite its isolated location, the environmental history of the Rico region illustrates how actions undertaken locally are determined by state and federal policy decisions. These policy decisions are often influenced by national public sentiment and economic trends, rather than empirical science, remedial objectives or local needs.
This study is part of a growing body of environmental history that focuses on the evolution of environmental policy. By incorporating previously unused official accounts from town records, including board minutes and letters, this study contributes to future research on the history of Rico, and on environmental history in general.
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Women’s Resource Center Research
Michelle Gutsch
University of Wisconsin-Superior
Mentor(s): n/a
Working as the Women’s Resource Center Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin Superior has given me insight into a change in the needs of students at our school. I have conducted primary and secondary research to see if other schools are experiencing a similar change in their need for a Women’s Center. In my paper I discuss the historical importance of Women’s Centers dealing with women’s rights movements. I then go on to discuss that there is a need for equality for all people and a center promoting that equality, rather than just women’s rights, and how that would be much for useful to this generation. I surveyed eight Universities, one of which was a COPLAC school, questioning them about the type of women’s/ gender center they have. I then did some further secondary research on schools based on their websites. I concluded that the center at UW-Superior should be changed to encompass a wider range of diversity, based on what other surrounding universities are doing.
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