2023 Pioneer Scholars

Dr. Huck and I have been working on research involving negative sexual experiences in the LGBTQ+ community. Negative sexual experiences involve any type of sexual coercion, harassment, assault, and sexual violence an individual may experience. The LGBTQ+ community is exposed to negative sexual experiences more than heterosexual individuals, yet there is not enough research surrounding the topic. For instance, perceptions of these experiences, which would be important for rehabilitative and preventive measures, are scarce in research findings but are becoming more available in work data 2021/2022. My first research project with Dr. Huck sought to make those voices heard. Going forward, I want to explore how perceptions of these negative sexual experiences differ from those that are not in the LGBTQ+ community and compare group member perceptions to one another. Do those in the LGBTQ+ community have similar or different negative experiences to cisgender heterosexual individuals? How do they handle these types of situations and are their perspectives differing in any way? For example, do heterosexuals feel more comfortable speaking out about their experiences when compared to those in the LGBTQ+ community? These are the questions we will set out to try and answer.

Anger is widely considered to be a destructive emotion, with its excess being warned against and propensities to it frowned upon. Yet there are situations where failure to rise to anger is seen as an indication of incorrect humanity. Responses to atrocity are often expected to be angry so as to prove how vehemently evil is opposed. A lack of anger at that which threatens one’s well-being or the well-being of those they love is often seen as a sign of weakness. I plan to write a paper contemplating if/how anger fits into the life of a virtuous person, beginning with an understanding of Stoic discipline before exploring possible exceptions.

Beyond academic education, the university experience has a great impact on the development of people’s character, as it clusters people with different backgrounds and cultures, race, religion, and political beliefs. This is a period of search and discovery of one’s own identity. In the United States, these experiences have been widely depicted in cinema. Traditionally, these films contain many classic stereotypes, such us the popular football player and the blonde cheerleader. Only recently have American university movies started to show interest in depicting the diversity that can be found on a college campus in a non-comical way. On the other hand, European movies about college have historically focused on social changes and the fight of minority groups instead of focusing on the traditional comedic love stories.

The focus of this research project was to learn more about available conservation tools that could benefit populations of bumblebees, while also conducting a survey of pollinator species that are present at Prairie Springs Education Center. We partnered with Conservation Dogs Collective Inc. to study if using dogs' keen sense of smell is an advantageous tool to locate bumblebee nest compared to a human surveyor. So far, we have identified around seven species and have discovered two nests, one being originally located by the dogs and the other located by Sophia. At the end of this project, we hope to gain more information about using conservation dogs for protecting endangered species while also creating a larger list of observable pollinators at the University's field station. 

Using both the Self-Healing Community Model (Porter et al., 2016) and the Missouri Model for Trauma-Informed Care (Missouri Department of Mental Health, n.d.) as a framework, Elizabeth and Dr. Grayshaw will make the beginning steps towards making Carroll University a Trauma-Informed community. This is a two-pronged approach, with one prong being establishing a base-line for Carroll's community, and a second prong working towards sustainability for Carroll students to bring trauma-informed care into their future communities.

Deklan and Lee conducted a national survey of animal shelters in America regarding their use of a behavioral assessment protocols specifically targeting resource guarding. Resource guarding is considered one subsection of aggression in which a dog reacts towards another dog, animal, or person over an object that is perceived as high value through avoidance, rapid ingestion, threatening, and or biting (Siracusa, 2016). Among shelters that are participating in a “fake hand” test, an individual is tasked with providing the dog a “high value” item such as food, treats, or toys. The fake hand is then inserted between the dog and the high value item. Dogs’ body language is then scored on a scale of 1 to 5 based on their response. In most situations, this scale ranges from, but is not limited to no response (a score of 1) to biting the hand (a score of 5). The assessment was designed to predict whether a dog will react in a similar fashion should their adoptive family try to remove something from a dogs' possession. Although these tests were assumed to have merit, Mohan-Gibbons et al., (2018) found that the resource guarding test is both inaccurate at predicting the dogs that will resource guard and does not lower the risk of a human being bit. The goal of this project was to determine reasons why the practice remains and if alternative information is provided, assess how that affects shelter staffs’ perspective of this practice.

The thirteenth century saw an apocalyptic threat facing Eastern Europe in the form of successive waves of Mongol invasions. As C.W. Connell notes, the term “Tartar” stuck when applied to Mongols because Europeans saw them as agents of hell. Genghis Khan reportedly stated that he was “the punishment of God,” reinforcing this image. Fortunately for the people of the east, they had strong defenders, and though they are commonly overlooked, these included powerful women such as the Hungarian Queen Consort Maria Laskarina (r.1235-1270) and Salomea of Poland (c.1212-1268). While neither woman rode into battle against the Mongols, each strengthened their lands against this external threat. By analyzing their letters within the historical context, this study shows that Queen Maria made strategic grants of land and remission of taxation in order to help damaged areas rebuild or strengthen areas in danger of being overrun, while Salomea used similar strategies to promote monastic reform and build up communities of nuns who were, as it was believed at the time, engaged in spiritual warfare.  

The stability of DNA is important as it contains the genetic material of a cell. When DNA is damaged, mutations or cell death may occur. Cells have evolved multiple ways to repair and protect its DNA, including using glycosylase enzymes that cut damaged bases out of the DNA molecule. This project isolated a proposed glycosylase, YfjP, from other proteins in Bacillus subtilis bacteria. We found that YfjP indeed exhibits glycosylase activity and may have an important role in protecting this bacterial species from DNA damage.