Students, faculty to present research at 21st annual academic symposium

Event: 21st annual Goshen College Student Academic Symposium and Faculty Reception
Date and Time: Friday, March 15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Location: Goshen College’s Good Library
Cost: Free and open to the public
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The 21st annual Goshen College Student Academic Symposium will take place Friday, March 15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the college’s Harold and Wilma Good Library. New this year, faculty will be recognized for promotions and recently-published work at the event.

The symposium is an event that encourages Goshen College students and faculty to share original research within their academic programs, showcasing projects, presentations and posters. The symposium provides a professional development experience for students wishing to practice their presentation skills in an academic venue.

Promoted and recently-published faculty will be recognized from 10-10:50 a.m. in the Good Library. Faculty being recognized for promotions include Jessica Baldanzi, associate professor of English; Patty Peebles to associate professor of nursing; and Laura Wheeler, professor of nursing.

The presentations consist of 23 Goshen College students and three faculty members presenting original research.

Students will present in the Good Library according to the following schedule:

Session One: 11-11:50 a.m.

Good Library Reading Room

Jo-Ann A. Brant: Aversion as a Rhetorical Strategy in the Acts of Thomas and Buddhist Tradition (Theology)

Madeline Smith Kauffman: Indirect Trauma and its Intersection with Social Work Practice (Social Work)

Michael Sherer: The Biochemistry of Anxiety and Depression (Biochemistry)

Session Two: 1-1:50 p.m.

A Good Library Reading Room

Nick Schrock: Power From Voting Records in the U.S. Senate (Game Theory)

Kylie Whipple: Memorializing the Immoral (Sociology)

Cassie Sessa: Nursing Negligence or unavoidable outcome: Kennedy Terminal Ulcers (Nursing)

Royer Reading Room

Claude Lilford: How Influential are Negative Film Reviews? (Communication)

Spencer Aeschliman and Luke Rush: Simulating Forest Fires (Mathematical Modeling)

Laura Hoover: 91.1 the Globe: A 60 Year Legacy (History)

Session Three 2 -2:50

Good Library Reading Room

Alyssa Arella, Makenna Bierbaum, Diana Ramirez,

Hannah Friesen, Sarah Martin, Jose Ortiz, Elizabeth Eichelberger, Amy Castillo: Sense of Belonging Interventions: Effects on Undergraduate Students (Psychology)

Rae Ann Miller: A Systematic Study of Teaching (Education)

Evan Krabill: Issues Concerning the Ethics of Archeological Research on the Atacama Mummy (Archaeology/Ethics)

Royer Reading Room

Rudi Mucaj: Sing, Sing, Sing: How Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone Influenced Social Change Through Jazz (History)

Yazan Meqbil: Investigation and Characterization of the N-terminal Methylation of a Subset of 24 S. cerevisiae Substrates by the Methyltransferase TaeI (Biochemistry)

Annie Steiner: Men to Pigs and Back Again: How Madeline Miller’s “Circe” Raises Questions about Power and Privilege (English)

Session Four: 3-3:50 p.m.

Good Library Reading Room

Paul Keim: The Consolation of Joban Humanity (Theology)

Ryan Haggerty: An Analysis of the Music of San Miguel (Music)

Kartikeya Sharma: Confirming Tolerance: A Study of Tolerance of American States with Schelling’s model of segregation (Mathematics/Sociology)


Recently-published faculty and staff include:

Suzanne Ehst, Ph.D., published “Writing toward Democracy: Scaffolding Civic Engagement with Historically Marginalized Students,” in English Journal in July 2018. The co-author is Goshen College alum Lewis Caskey.

Ann Hostetler, Ph.D., has new book of poems, Safehold, which was just released by the Cascadia Poetry series of Cascadia publishing.

Ryan Sensenig, Ph.D., was a co-author on two papers related to his fire ecology research in Kenya.

  • LaMalfa, E., R.L. Sensenig, D.M. Kimuyu, T.P. Young, C. Riginos and K.E. Veblen. 2018. Tree resprout dynamics following fire depend on herbivory by wild and domestic ungulate herbivores (in press Journal of Ecology).
  • Bergstrom, B.J., R.L. Sensenig,  D.J. Augustine and T.P. Young. 2018. Searching for cover: soil enrichment and herbivore exclusion, not fire, enhance African savanna small-mammal abundance. Ecosphere 9:e02519.

Duane Stoltzfus, Ph.D., served as a contributor to and copy editor for Forever God Is Faithful: The Story of Camp Deerpark, a 50th-anniversary collection of essays and historical notes. Camp Deerpark, which is located in Westbrookville, N.Y., is owned and operated by the Mennonite churches of New York City. The book was published in 2019.

Ruth Stoltzfus, Ph.D., was an invited reviewer for a textbook, Zuzelo, P.R. (2020). Indirect care handbook for advanced nursing roles: Beyond the bedside. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.