Gwen Williams Prize

This project is a collaboration between the Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) and Psychological Science departments to:

• Design a study to identify causes of female student attrition
• Improve retention of the current cohort
• Create a peer mentorship program for long-term minority retention improvements

The peer mentorship program functions by recruiting female students into faculty research labs and training them on research methods, equipment and peer mentoring skills. These students then create videos, materials and collaborative projects to foster a sense of belonging in a traditionally male-dominated field.

This project was one of the early steps the ECE department has been taking to improve the diversity of our department and is an ongoing endeavor. Since the start of the program, 49 female students have been recruited to electrical and computer engineering. The funds from this project have helped to generate tutorial videos for first-year courses and training on equipment, including an ellipsometer and 3D printing. Soon, tutorials will support two workshops designed to help with hands-on engineering skills, including printed circuit board design and digital hardware design.

After a second revision of the tutorial videos this summer, the videos will be placed on a YouTube channel to support our students in an easily accessible way. Additionally, five minority student research mentors have been hired and are developing tutorials for courses, equipment and faculty research. The hands-on nature of the mentorship program has also gathered interest and support from industry, which helped secure $2,000 from the J.A. Woollam Foundation to support students next year.

The increased number of women in the program and increased research involvement are both indicators of the expected increased retention of women in engineering. O'Hare plans to survey the students participating in the program to identify the causes of minority attrition. Preliminary findings show the attrition rate of first- to second-year female students to be only 11.1%, well below the national average of 25 percent. This does not account for students who never declared the major and left, nor students who have left the major but have not yet officially changed their major. The three faculty members involved in this project are currently preparing a paper to present at the American Society for Engineering Education Rocky Mountain Section conference. This paper will focus on the outcomes and student perception of the mentoring program. Additional papers are planned for publication as the research team continues to gather and analyze data on the cohorts of participating students.

The Weber State University Global Community Engaged Learning's Global Agents of Change program traveled to Ghana over spring break 2022 with 55 students, faculty and staff. The program has partnered with the Ghana Make a Difference organization since 2019 to design a school for children rescued from slave and sex trafficking. The volunteer group began the project by using local materials to create thousands of mortarless bricks to construct the school which will provide onsite foster care for children unable to be reunited with their families.

Students from Weber State's interior design program implemented noise reduction design solutions by using local fabrics to dampen noise pollution inside the concrete dining hall. The fabrics also beautified classrooms that had been converted from an abandoned chicken coop. The volunteers added a fresh coat of paint to the exterior gate and built shelves to house library books organized according to grade level. They fashioned a gutter and downspout system that uses collected rainwater to irrigate the school's soccer field and gardens. It's estimated that making the bricks saved enough money to hire eight local workers to finish building the school and foster housing within 12 to 18 months.

The project aimed to purchase equipment and imaging facilities in shared lab spaces within the Tracy Hall Science Center to develop a protocol to complete mineral separation (specifically the mineral zircon, an ideal geologic clock). Faculty and students in the EES Department collected zircon-bearing rock samples to determine the geologic histories of mountain belts. To assess the history of a sample, individual zircon grains were separated and then imaged to evaluate growth increments recorded in different layers having distinct trace elemental signatures. The project outcomes included the following:

• Developed a technique for generating publication-quality CL images at Weber State to avoid paying outside labs (saving Balgord and her students $5500-$8250 annually)
• Preliminary data used to produce an NSF-Earth Science Instrumentation and Facilities proposal submitted by both Balgord and Rabosky
• Six undergraduates worked collaboratively on this project, three in physics and three in EES
• Three abstracts with seven student authors presenting at national and regional Physics and Geology conferences between 2020 and 2022
• A publication coauthored by Rabosky and Balgord submitted in 2022

This project aimed to bring awareness of women's impact on the local area and community since the 1870s demonstrated through research and oral histories of women from all walks of life and experiences. Through this project, participating students had the opportunity to learn how to conduct oral histories and research. The research culminated in an exhibit about the impact of women, using the 19th Amendment as the catalyst.

Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the exhibit was only open to the public briefly before being transferred to a virtual format. A total of 584 people viewed the show in person, with 1,000 people viewing the exhibit virtually at beyondsuffrage.org. The exhibit includes oral histories and research conducted on women of the area and additional information about Ogden and other historical influencers. The project's public programming series, conducted virtually, included five historian lecturers, three panel events, and four storytime events. The lectures focused on women's histories in healthcare, politics, labor and activism. One panel explored the stories of the women involved in the project, while another explored women activists. A storytime event geared toward a younger audience highlighted children's books that explore the suffrage movement, civil rights, and voting.

This project was well-received by Weber State University and the local community and successfully spread awareness of women's impact.

Through active learning and engagement pedagogy, students will develop the critical thinking and analytical skills to identify and implement integrated solutions to complex and multi-faceted world problems. Graduates of this program will be poised to improve communities and living conditions worldwide.

The proposed minor is to provide students with the knowledge and skills to address wicked problems. Wicked problems are significantly, if not impossible, to solve because the problem is interconnected and interdisciplinary. The minor will complement any major to form a cohort of students from different disciplines working together to solve a common wicked problem of their choosing. The goal is to guide students’ exploration of any wicked problem through sociocultural, economic, sustainable, and political lenses while also developing skills to empower them to become big problem solvers, educated, actively engaged citizens, and future leaders. The courses in the minor will require a signature assignment that is likely to be integrative, reflective and applied. Many student-led projects involve partnerships with OUR, Honors, CCEL, SPARC, and study abroad.

The purposes of the Uganda Project were two-fold: to provide Weber State students with an immersive international experience and to collaborate with a local school in Nyafumba, Uganda, to undertake several building initiatives. The building initiatives included a food storage facility, library, and drinking fountains for the outdoor playing field.
 
In June 2018, three faculty and 25 Weber State students traveled to a local school in Nyafumba, Uganda, for 21 days to organize a library, construct a food storage facility, and water fountains for school children. The team converted one of the school buildings into a library stocked with books. This library, which is now the first in the area, will help advance children's education in this region of Uganda. They also built a food storage facility to store local garden produce and prepare meals to feed school children, providing them with daily nourishment when they are attending school. Weber State also installed a water system, including two fountains near the playground. These fountains now provide Ugandan school children the necessary hydration during and after their sports program. Weber State students (some of whom are education majors) also had the opportunity to teach Ugandan children, which provided them with a diverse and enriching international teaching experience. A final project we worked on was constructing a home for a widow. This woman had lost her husband to AIDS and was now raising her three children and two nieces and nephews. Her existing house, compromised by heavy rains, had created structural issues.

A paper discussing the intricacies of an interdisciplinary teaching experience applied to community engagement learning was submitted to the Journal of Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning. A film produced from footage and images taken during the Uganda Project by a participating student was shown in March 2019 and entered into film festivals.

As large-scale deployment of solar installations increases, the need for solar energy conversion materials that are earth-abundant and non-toxic grows. A new material, perovskites, offers the opportunity for an earth-abundant, non-toxic material that is cost-effective to synthesize through solution processing techniques available here at Weber State University (WSU). Perovskites have rapidly grown to high efficiencies since their initial appearance in solar research laboratories in 2009. These materials show much promise but suffer from degradation that currently holds them back from commercial development. WSU researchers initially made perovskite materials using methylammonium and lead iodide solutions. The researchers optimized these materials to achieve a nanocrystalline microstructure necessary for the conversion energy of 1.9 electron volts, comparable to the best in the field, between 1.5 and 1.7 electron volts. The researchers used this synthetic technique to create a working solar cell.

Now, the WSU researchers are working on optimizing each layer to increase the efficiency of the solar cell by using the synthetic strategy of chemical vapor deposition, which changes the macroscopic and microscopic structure of the film. These new films are more amorphous than the previous method, which is more optimal for solar cell applications. The researchers also are working on replacing each layer with the most environmentally friendly and non-toxic material possible. Making the perovskite material out of tin instead of lead, they use nickel oxide for the hole conducting layer instead of an expensive conductive polymer and optimize the titanium dioxide layer.

PROJECT #1

• Purpose of Project: The project further developed and strengthened the Women and Gender Studies internship/research component.
• Project Outcomes: Dr. Giralt met with multiple NGOs to discuss their activities within Rwanda. She conducted several site visits and spent time with local NGO leaders to determine how Women and Gender Studies could fit into the organizations and what locations would best suit our students. She identified a handful of locations where we should focus on placing students.
• Evaluation & Dissemination Outcomes: Several locations were determined to be the best fit. This summer (June/July 2017), we will place our first WGS student at one of these locations. She will spend five weeks working as an intern in Rwanda for credit. She then gave presentations about her experiences abroad to other WGS students in the program.

PROJECT #2

• Project Outcomes: Dr. Wolfe updated her presentation for inclusion in a book on the same topic at the request of organizers of the State Sponsored Histories conference (University of Ghent conference in Nov. 2015). Dr. Wolfe thus collected more research on Rwandan memorials while in the country. The chapter “Memorials and Commemoration Projects as an Expression of State Sponsored Narratives in the Rwandan Context” was published in 2017.

PROJECT #3

• Purpose of Project: Participants interviewed Rwandan genocide survivors to strengthen the above chapter. Interviews took place in Utah, New York City and Washington, D.C. A peer reviewer requested that we add additional interviews with survivors who still reside in Rwanda.
• Project Participants: Stephanie Wolfe, Alicia Giralt and Ashlee Cawley
• Project Outcomes: Three additional survivors were interviewed in Rwanda and various memorial sites were visited. In the Shadow of Genocide, a co-edited anthology and “Memory, Justice, and Transformation”, a co-written book chapter.

WSU PREP is a seven-week, free summer school for junior high students over three summers. The math-intensive program is designed to motivate and prepare participants, particularly girls and minorities, to pursue STEM studies and careers. Students have a rigorous engineering, math and science curriculum, with certified teachers assigned by our district partners (Davis, Ogden and Weber) and college-age students providing tutoring and acting as near-peer mentors. WSU PREP will prepare students for Advanced Placement classes in high school. In time, WSU PREP will result in higher graduation rates of underrepresented students than existing institutional programs because students are prepared at the college algebra level or beyond, ready to begin coursework in STEM degrees at WSU. A secondary purpose of the project is to bring students and families to the WSU campus over three summers, encouraging them to feel comfortable and confident on our campus and increasing enrollment at WSU of students who are prepared in quantitative literacy.

72 students participated in the pilot year (2015), 36 girls and 36 boys. Of those 72, 69 completed the full seven weeks. 42 students were white/Caucasian, and 30 were other (19 Hispanic, five multi-racial, 5 Asian, and a Native American). Eight university students were employed as program assistants/near-peer mentors. Three certified teachers from the Davis, Ogden and Weber School Districts taught the courses. 24 Career Awareness Speakers from the community were presented to the students. Speakers included those from four colleges at Weber State, Hill Air Force Base, L-3, City of Provo, Raytheon, ARUP Labs, ATK, University of Utah, etc.

Purposes of CAPES!

• To develop a community-focused skill development initiative for children with developmental disabilities (e.g., autism, Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, etc.) and their families.
• To facilitate Weber State students in PEP 3660: Physical Education for Students with Disabilities and EDUC 2010: Human Exceptionality to participate in practicum experiences designed to enhance their knowledge, understanding and application of various teaching and learning theories concerning individuals with disabilities.
• To provide an avenue of research into student-teacher perceptions, beliefs on teaching, and beliefs on learning concerning individuals with disabilities.

Outcomes of CAPES!

• Starting an experiential teaching and learning environment that meets the needs of children with disabilities and their families to enhance independence.
• Providing WSU Teacher Education track students the opportunity to interact with children with disabilities in a safe one-on-one environment.
• Providing an avenue of research into the perceptions and changes student teachers experience while beginning to teach individuals with disabilities.
• Providing a positive environment where parents/guardians and families of children with disabilities could develop a support network and relationships to foster continued involvement and interaction.

From its days as the cosmopolitan “Paris of the East” in the 1930s to the egalitarianism of the Maoist era (1949-1976) and on to the late 1970s Communist-era market socialism, Shanghai served as China's socio-political, economic and cultural center. Through visual and documentary art, literature, business and economic history, six guests from Shanghai and the U.S. promise to recreate what it was like to live in a vibrant, revolutionary cauldron over these four decades.

Conducted as part of the program Cauldron of Revolution, the lectures, exhibitions and workshops exhibited at the following venues in addition to Weber State University: the Weber County Library (Pleasant Valley branch), the Bountiful Davis Art Center, Union Station and, perhaps, the Salt Lake City Main Library auditorium. Each guest had at least two activities away from Weber State and 10 for the entire program. Besides lectures, these activities will include screening a documentary film, the exhibition of fine art and the reading of prose.

Four of the six guests are natives of Shanghai, and each guest’s work and knowledge of metropolitan Shanghai and its history extends well beyond the academic setting.

A similar program (dealing with Chinese cinema) organized by the applicant between 2004 and 2006 attracted audiences of 20 to 100 at several of the venues we have proposed. In nearly every case, the dissemination and discussion generated by the activities (lectures and film screenings) exceeded expectations; the Utah Humanities Council recognized it as one of two outstanding programs in Northern Utah for 2006. As conceived, Cauldron of Revolution promises to bring local, national and international attention to Weber State University. Our guests are internationally recognized for their achievements at Shanghai University, the Shanghai Theater Academy, Fudan University (Shanghai), the Shanghai Association of Art and Literature and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Over several years, the Hemingway Excellence Awards have been used to successfully launch a long-term computer science study abroad partnership and community based learning initiative that is helping to build an “open source” electronic medical records (EMR) system to assist millions of underserved people worldwide. 

The focus of developing such an extensive system is not only for Weber State University (WSU) students to gain first-hand experience working on a long-term software engineering project but to spotlight their position in the global community. 

WSU Computer Science faculty believe a generic EMR model that is scalable and adaptable to the unique demands of developing nations with limited resources is not only an optimal solution for Ghana, West Africa (where the system is prototyped in a 1,700-bed teaching hospital) but could eventually expand to other nations. In less than two years, Dr. Fry has completed the foundational work, and more than two dozen WSU Computer Science students have traveled to Ghana to deliver and train on the first phases of the software project. 

During the pilot study, more than 4,000 patient records were entered and transitioned into the new computerized system in less than a year. WSU efforts in Ghana have also assisted the hospital in hiring 15 new information technology (IT) staff members to support this initiative and allow the Ghanaians to maintain and enhance their own EMR software in the future.

During the summer of 2011, Chris Hoagstrom conducted fish surveys in creeks along the Wasatch Front, sampling sites. The project's overall goal was to sample trout populations in all streams along the Wasatch Front between Brigham City and Bountiful, Utah. Many creeks issue from small canyons along the front, and there was no comprehensive survey to determine which creeks had trout. Beyond this, there was very little information on how trout populations and habitats differed among creeks.

Hoagstrom sampled 31 creeks, some on more than one occasion, to get better information on the distribution and abundance of trout. Sampling in 2011 was critical for allowing the sampling of eight of these creeks. 14 of the 31 creeks contained a trout population. Most of these populations were rainbow trout, but one population was brown trout. The discovery of Bonneville cutthroat trout (a native species) in one creek was noteworthy, as was the re-discovery of an introduced (refuge) population of endangered Lahontan cutthroat trout.

This project involved 10 Weber State students, with three posters presented at the Weber State Undergraduate Research Symposium, the Day at the Utah State Capitol and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Most notable is a poster by Tyler Anderson and Madison Kingsford that summarizes the findings of the entire study. Tyler compiled all the data and analyzed what habitat characteristics determine whether or not a trout population is present; he also conducted extensive library research to determine the flood histories of each canyon. 

With this combined information, he and Madison determined that larger creeks that are less steep and drain mountains of higher elevation are more likely to support trout and that catastrophic flooding and landslides can wipe out trout populations even in more suitable creeks. Still, some populations survived floods and landslides; this provides great baseline information regarding trout populations along the Wasatch Front. Another result of this work is that the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources plans to re-introduce native Bonneville cutthroat trout to streams that do not presently have trout populations but appear suitable for them. As a result of his work, Tyler was awarded the Department of Zoology Evolutionary Ecology Award.

The Weber State University Summer Solo and Chamber Music Camp welcomes motivated violin, cello and piano players to Weber State University. Students take lessons and get coached by internationally renowned faculty.

Designed to explore the creation of an interdepartmental neuroscience minor at Weber State, the Neuroscience Initiative could be followed by a neuroscience major and/or program. Project members will formally assess Weber State University (WSU) student and faculty interest in neuroscience, complete an Introduction to Neuroscience course proposal, draft a neuroscience minor curriculum, organize a WSU Neuroscience Seminar Series and assess external funding opportunities for collaborative neuroscience research on campus. The group will also establish community partnerships (e.g., with local hospitals and industry leaders) on neuroscience education and research.

Professor John Cavitt requested funding to establish the Global Scholars Initiative (GSI) at Weber State University. GSI will allow Weber State faculty-student teams to conduct research and scholarly activity in collaboration with faculty-student teams from Universidad Autónoma de Nayarit (UAN) in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico. This unique opportunity will provide international research experience for faculty and students and prepare a globally engaged workforce by providing students with international collaborative research training and a personal network to build future collaborations.

The project's purpose was to research and write a new book manuscript tentatively entitled The Way Rivers Should Be, which combines memoir, natural and cultural history, and travel writing. In general, Crimmel would follow the process he successfully followed for RSPG-sponsored projects in the past, which led to the publication of two books: Dinosaur: A Place of Rivers (Arizona, 2007) and Teaching in Place: Learning from the Land (Nevada, 2008). This process entails combining secondary research with primary research conducted while on location. For this new project, Crimmel would canoe and kayak the Grasse River, which originates in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State and flows north to the St. Lawrence Seaway. He would draw on his own extensive experience in this region and on this river to explore such issues as industrial pollution at Massena, NY, forest and water conservation, the history of logging and hydropower in the Adirondacks, ice hockey in the small towns along the river (this sparsely populated region produces a disproportionate share of state champion hockey teams in all age groups), the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation and more. The book intends to reach an educated audience but written in an engaging narrative style that appeals to as wide a demographic as possible.

The purpose of Dr. Alice Giralt’s project was to host the 16th Conference of the International Association of Hispanic Women Writers (AILFH) at Weber State University. It brought together AILFH members from 21 countries, including academicians, critics, writers and publishing houses. The conference included concurrent cultural activities such as art exhibits, performances and concerts. Participants, Weber State students and local community members enjoyed opportunities to learn about literature, films and 2-D art Hispanic women have produced and are still producing.

The international literary community recognized the quality of Weber State students through their participation as volunteers, musicians and dancers. It also provided an avenue to improve the self-image of local Hispanic girls through exposure to successful Hispanic women writers.
Evaluations showed participants were very impressed by the conference, including the quality of papers, readings and round table discussions. A three-day writing workshop held as part of the conference was so successful that participants wanted to continue after it was over. It continues online, overseen by one of the visiting presenters.

The Civic Engagement Faculty Retreat Committee members listed above planned an August 2003 retreat to allow participants to discuss and share experiences and insights on their service learning and community based research projects. 80 individuals attended the three-day workshop, including 38 Weber State University (WSU) faculty, eight WSU staff members and 17 service learning educators from other institutions. Workshop presenters included the WSU president and interim provost, University of Utah leaders for Campus Compact and the Bennion Center, and national Campus Compact consultants. Three WSU students also shared their experiences with service learning and community-based research. Finally, representatives from six community partner agencies talked about the benefits of service learning and community based research from a recipient’s point of view.

This program supported seven students in conducting full-time independent research collaboratively with a faculty member from one of the life sciences departments within the College of Science. In addition to conducting research, each student had to attend a weekly journal club meeting and workshop. After the summer program, students constructed research posters and displayed their results at two poster sessions on campus. Three students made oral presentations of their research at the annual meeting of the Utah Ornithological Society. All seven students presented their research at the 17th National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Salt Lake City.

This pilot program, created to develop technological skills in students, later partnered them with faculty. In this team concept, the student assisted the faculty member in developing technical skills and competency. In turn, the faculty member provided an individualized learning opportunity for the student. This proposal was based on a national model developed at William Patterson College in New Jersey and perfected at Seton Hall University. This model helped address the technology support crisis in higher education. The Weber State implementation of this model focused on course support, online course support, website creation, help desk, computer lab support, and peer support; it also included a summer training camp for selected students.