Annual ReportFY 2010-2011

Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence

www.gvsu.edu/csce

Page 1 Table of Contents

Page 2 Welcome Letter from Robert Smart, Executive Director CSCE

Page 3 Office of Sponsored Programs

Page 4 Faculty Profile – Jon Engelsma

Page 5 Staff Profile – Arn Boezaart

Page 6 Internal Support

Page 6-8 Distinguished Scholars

Page 9 Faculty Profile – Susan Carson

Page 10 Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship

Page 11 Student Profile – Jen Torreano

Pages 11-13 Research Protections Program

Table of Contents

1

Welcome,The Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence is proud to highlight some of the work – creative and scholarly – performed by GVSU faculty over the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Over the course of this year, GVSU faculty gave over 440 presentations with the help of internal travel grants; received awards of excellence; and is on track to receive a record amount of external funding. CSCE strives to assist faculty in identifying and incorporating opportunities for the expansion and dissemination of their en-deavors.

This publication not only explains the multiple roles that CSCE plays in facilitating opportunities for creative and academic engagement for faculty and students, but also highlights some of the work being done by members of the GVSU community. From The Office of Sponsored Programs to The Office for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship, CSCE supports efforts and encourages exploration throughout all disciplines and around the globe. This publication also gives us a chance to reflect on our many successes over the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

As GVSU continues to define its role as leader in Sustainability, in Student Engagement, and in Scholarship, CSCE looks forward to helping with the continuing efforts toward excellence. We hope that you enjoy learning about some of the endeavors as much as we enjoyed supporting them.

Best Wishes, Robert Smart, Ph. D. Executive Director

Mission Statement of CSCE The Center of Scholarly and Creative Excellence promotes a culture of active,

engaged and ethical scholarship through supporting innovative faculty and student researchand collaborative partnerships in the broader community.

2

Office of Sponsored Programs

The Grand Valley State University community is made up of students, faculty, and staff committed to improving our world. Through their exceptional research and creative activities, our faculty and staff not only perform important scholarship, they also provide outstanding educational experiences for our students. The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) provides research support for this integral aspect of GVSU’s contributions to our community and our greater world. It is the central office that supports faculty and staff in identifying, developing, submitting, implementing, and managing externally sponsored agreements for scholarly research and creative activity.

Over the past 3 years, the University’s extramural support has risen steadily with increased proposal submissions to agencies and in money received -- from $15.6 million in FY 2008 to $24.9 million in FY 2010. This represents a 20.4 percent increase over the previous year and a 37.3 percent increase since FY 2008. The same upward trend can be seen in the number of proposals submitted by GVSU over the same time period.

3

Dr. Jonathan Engelsma, Associate Professor in the School of Computing, serves as leader of the Mobile Applications and Services Lab. He describes himself as a computer scientist, programmer, teacher, mobile technology enthusiast, inventor, beekeeper and life-long student. His research interests are in distributed and pervasive computing with a focus on mobile applic-ations and services. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Michigan State University in 1993, and has over two decades of industry experience, including 16 years with Motorola, Inc. in various research and development positions.

The genesis of Dr. Engelsma’s study is fairly straightforward -- mobile phone and Internet represent two widely embraced modern communication mediums that have up until very recently existed and evolved independently of each other. However, the mobile phone has evolved from being a device dedicated to making voice phone calls, over the publically switched phone network, to a general-purpose applications platform that has many of the same capabilities of the conventional desktop computer and some additional capabilities as well -- in addition to voice calling, the mobile now supports text messaging, Internet applications, games, and many other user experiences that in the past resided on our personal computers.

With the advances of the mobile phone, the Internet also has evolved at a hyper-Darwinian rate. It was the emergence of the World-Wide Web in the mid-nineties that made the Internet more user-friendly thereby making it perhaps one of the greatest advances in information dissemination since the printing press. In less than two decades, the web metamorphosed from primarily a distributed documentation publishing engine to a general-purpose computing platform; with Web 2.0 technologies giving rise to the existence of Rich Internet Applications -- applications that are highly interactive and in many ways resembled the types of interactivity we are accustomed

to when we interact with native applications installed on our computers. It is these more recent interactive web technologies that have been leveraged to create what is known as social media – media that is designed to be created, distributed and consumed online via social interaction. While traditional media was often one to many, social media is many to many, allowing end users to create and interact socially with each other around and via digital content.

This research project, which utilizes GVSU students as a core component of the research team, focuses on the convergence of two powerful mediums – the mobile phone and the internet -- with specific attention on developing understanding of the benefits to both retail shoppers and bricks and mortar retail merchants from the use of networked mobile applications that incorporate social and rich media. While Dr. Engelsma fully acknowledges the literature on utilizing social media in the context of online retail, he and his team of student researchers intend to explore how the evolution of mobile devices has altered the actual in-store retail setting. Therefore while looking back to the research on online merchandizing, he sees the timely need to research the impact on mobile devices and views his research as opportunity in a holistic and balanced way that takes into account both the interests of the consumer as well as the retail merchant. Utilizing pilot studies which utilize experimental retail mobile applications designed specifically for this study -- the application will be made available via mobile application ecosystems such as Apple’s App Store, and Google’s Android MarketPlace – a myriad of data will be collected and analyzed. The ultimate goal is to publish the case studies and the best practices distilled from the pilot studies and enhance the experience of the students involved in this project.

John Engelsma’s Investigation in Mobile, Social & Rich Media Retail Applications received $50,000 from Motorola, Inc.

Faculty Profi le – Jonathan Engelsma

4

Arn Boezaart, director of the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center at Grand Valley State Univer-sity, was named a Thought Leader in Energy by Busi-ness Review West Michigan. Since being named the director of MAREC in November 2009, Boezaart has positioned MAREC as a public resource for the region and has led the off-shore wind research study to bring wind energy opportunities to West Michigan.

Boezaart is a founding member of the Muskegon Area Sustainability Coalition and a member of the Leadership Committee and Muskegon Rotary. He is chair of the North Bank Communities Fund Advisory Committee of the Grand Haven Area Community Foundation, and is part of Muskegon Opportunity, an education initiative. He is also affiliated with United Way and the Muskegon County Environmental Coordinating Council.

Arn Boezart and the GVSU Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC) are working with a wide range of partners including the University of Michigan, Phoenix Energy Institute, Michigan State University, and Michigan Natural Features Inventory program, and on a Lake Michigan Offshore Wind Assessment project beginning mid-summer 2011. The project, which is scheduled to conclude in December 2013, will provide important baseline data for possiblefuture wind energy development on the Great Lakes.

This offshore research effort will utilize an AXYS WindSentinel™ research buoy equipped with Vindic-ator™ laser light pulse technology to collect a range of data including offshore wind measurements. The project will measure vertical columns of air at varied heights simultaneously. This innovative and largely untested alternative method of data collection – when compared to more traditional wind measurement readings taken from fixed meteorological (MET) towers with anemometers – should provide more accurate results as it addresses the difficulties and expenses involved in employing traditional methods in an offshore envir-onment. In addition, the project will conduct correl-ation studies using near-shore fixed MET tower loca-tions and determine the presence of bird and bat spe-cies over Lake Michigan. The WindSentinel buoy will be deployed at multiple locations during the project, including near shore and the mid-lake plateau region of Lake Michigan.

Arn Boezaart Offshore Wind Development received $1.4 million from the Department of Energy and $1.3 million from Michigan Public Service Commission.

Staff Profi le – Arn Boezaart

5

Over the course of his career, Professor Gary Stark has contributed to the scholarship on modern European history through conference papers, journal articles, co-edited books of historical essays, and two books recognized as important contributions to historical understanding of modern German culture. Dr. Stark’s most recent work, Banned in Berlin - Literacy Censorship in Imperial Germany, 1871-1918, typifies his excellence in scholarship and has solidified his reputation as an expert in German cultural history. GVSU is honored to have such a distinguished scholar as Gary Stark. He is an extraordinarily generous colleague willing to share his expertise with junior faculty as they develop their own careers.

Gary Stark Distinguished Contribution

in the Discipline

Internal Support

The CSCE supports faculty engagement in activities that promote their work – research and creative – and enhance the profile of GVSU.

A critical feature of a productive research program is the ability to disseminate findings and engage in scholarly discourse with colleagues around the world, to learn of and develop future research activities, to develop productive research collaborations, and to support new grant applications. The CSCE Dissemination Grant program is designed to provide faculty members with funds for these important activities be it publication (page and other publication charges), travel to support presentations at professional meetings, or other scholarly dissemination venues. GVSU’s influence continues to grow and span the globe. The world map shows the various locations of scholarly dissemination of our faculty in the last fiscal year.

Distinguished Scholars

6

Rachel Powers Distinguished Early-Career

Scholar Award

Ryan Thum Distinguished Early-CareerScholar Award

Dr. Rachel Powers has built a successful research program that integrates undergraduate studentsthroughout the entire scholarly process. Her research involves a cutting edge X-ray crystallographytechnique, and offers a combined approach to formally map the active sites of the class D beta-lactamases,OXA-1 and OXA-24/40, two highly relevant antibiotic resistance targets. The specific aims of her work are to employ a structure-based consensus overlay approach to identify and characterize thebinding sites of OXA-1 and OXA-40. This type of research is not usually available at primarily undergraduateinstitutions like GVSU. Her work has been recognized nationally by receiving funding both from the National Institute of Health and the Research Corporation. Recently her collaborative work with Dr.David Leonard was highlighted in the journal Biochemistry.

At his laboratory at the Annis Water Resources Institute, Dr. Ryan Thum’s research is already making amark on the national landscape. Specifically, his research program applies the concepts and tools fromthe basic research field of molecular ecology to the environmental problem of invasive species andmanagement. Dr. Thum has established an impressive record of extramural support from the state, privatesector, and federal government, including a Major Research Instrumentation grant from the NationalScience Foundation to furnish the laboratory with highly advanced equipment that benefits numerousGVSU faculty. Since arriving at GVSU, he has authored or co-authored eight peer-reviewed manuscriptsand more than 20 presentations at academic conferences or as an invited seminar speaker. While beinga top notch researcher, Dr. Thum is also a teacher, as he has mentored numerous undergraduate andMasters level students through research projects, as well as used his research expertise to develop abrand new course (Molecular Ecology).

7

Steven Schlicker Distinguished Undergraduate

Mentoring Award

Deborah Herrington Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award

With a consistent record of outstanding undergraduate research at GVSU, Dr. Steven Schlicker is the winner of the Distinguished Undergraduate Mentoring Award. He has directly promoted undergraduate scholarship by being one of the founders of the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP); the predecessor of our Student Summer Scholars (S3) Program. Dr. Schlicker served as a primary investigator on nationally recognized National Science Foundation grants that have involved 80 undergraduate students, which have helped to sustain nationally recognized undergraduate scholarship at GVSU. His collaborative work with students has led to 9 peer-reviewed publications and numerous presentations at national conferences. In addition, seven of his students have won awards for their presentations at national conferences, three students have been awarded prestigious Goldwater Scholarships, and many of his students have gone on to earn graduate degrees.

Dr. Herrington is recognized both nationally and internationally for her research expertise in chemical education. As co-developer of the Target Inquiry Program, Dr. Herrington has designed a nationally revered chemistry education program that has changed the way that high school chemistry is taught. Graduate students who have been mentored by Dr. Herrington through the TI Program have gone on to become successful and award winning teachers. In this way, Dr. Herrington has had direct impact on not only on these high school teachers, but also on their students. Dr. Herrington serves as a collegial, strong role model for others as she continually works to develop her scholarly contributions in her critically important field of science education. Dr. Herrington exemplifies all the qualities of a teacher-scholar, she is very deserving of the Graduate Mentoring Award.

8

Associate Professor of Education, Susan Carson, took a few minutes to reflect on her travels to India for her Fulbright Award Winning Research.

When asked if the trip was what you thought it would be, she said “As Loretta Konecki would say, yes and no. I could not have imagined a more amazing experi-ence. To be able to teach, research, travel and study culture is an incomparable gift.” She found the most rewarding aspect was being with people, experiencing different walks of life, different ways of being, and ex-periencing the “intersecting life moments with beggars, senior professors, children, shop keepers, women and men sharing our world together, and staying present to have those moments.”

Award Winning Research Agenda Dr. Carson’s research focuses on principles and practices of caring communities, with an emphasis on equity opportunities for young women and girls in contemporary India; and furthering the understanding of global connections and educational opportunities. She explored ways in which principles and practices of caring communities can be integrated into learning

communities, and how those principles might be used to construct a shared vision, reduce violence, improve communication, enhance relationships, address issues of gender equity and foster respect. In its broadest ap-plication, her research explores how we can empower others to care.

Carson approaches her research with careful considera-tion to the conjunction between educational opportun-ities and the social and structural realities that affect women’s participation in education and communities. Understanding the ways in which the principles and practices of caring communities may be integrated in-to educational institutions and education programs to advance women’s equity is pivotal to her study, as one goal of the research is to create a greater understand-ing of the relationship these principles and practices have to learning and teaching, with an emphasis on women’s learning.

Faculty Profi le – Susan Carson

Fulbright Award Winner

9

Some of the hallmark programs of OURS are:

Student Summer ScholarsThis program provides opportunities for mentored, student-driven research and reflection on diverse and intersecting disciplines. In 2011, the program fostered twenty-four Student Scholars in disciplines ranging from Music to Chemistry to Latin American Studies. This ten-week intensive summer exploration is individualized as research varies from such topics as the origins and influence of the electric bass on the evolution of jazz and the development of contemporary music, to assessing the degree of inconsistency between expert and novice interpretations of exam ques-tions, to mapping neural stem cell domains in the ventral midbrain of the chick embryo. This pro-gram provides valuable experience for the student and valuable research for the university.

Student Scholars Day In 2011, this year-end discussion and celebration of the academic and creative accomplishments of GVSU students, saw nearly five hundred students present their research to the GVSU community. These students gave 299 student presentations (oral presentations, poster presentations, discus-sion panels, and exhibits) that represented over 70 majors and graduate programs. Nearly 200 faculty mentors from over 42 departments and programs participated in SSD 2011. It truly is a day to celebrate scholarship and creative excel-lence in the GVSU community.

Offi ce of Undergraduate Research

In 2010, the Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (OURS) was established as part of the Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence with the mission and intent of establishing comprehensive services and programs which support students in their pursuit of inquiry, creativity, scholarship, and research.OURS offers a variety of opportunities and resources for undergraduates to pursue research and scholarship in a wide range of disciplines and with a faculty mentor. These intensive opportunities enrich students’ academic experiences as they challenge them to strengthen their critical, analytical, and communicative skills.

Academic Conference FundThis grant program was established to provide travel funds for GVSU students to present/perform at an academic conference. As of May 2011, the ACF travel fund has awarded 140 applications. These students represented 47 majors, and examples of presentation title include:

• “The Geometry of Compact Sets”• “Taser Deployment: The Role of Departmental Policy and Training in Officer Discretion”• “Refugees Near and Far: What they Need vs. What they Receive”• “The Impact of Land-Use Changes on Carbon Storage in Small Streams, Ottawa County, Michigan”• “Applied Entrepreneurialism in a Communication Program: A Case Study in Green Internships”

Academic and Professional Enrichment FundThis grant program was established to provide travel funds for GVSU students to accompany faculty members to academic conferences. To date, the APEF has awarded 41 applications, which enabled 96 students to travel with faculty to conferences during the 2010-2011 academic year. The fac-ulty represented 23 departments, and examples of conferences they attended include:

• “Society for Music Theory & American Musicoligical Society Joint Annual Meeting”• “Geological Society of America Annual Meeting & Exposition 2010: Reaching New Peaks in the Geosciences”• “71st Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference”• “Sports, Events, Marketing Experience”• “Conference of the Society for Research on Child Development (SRCD)”

10

Undergraduate Student Profi le – Jen Torreano

A 2010 Student Summer scholar, Jen Torreano, pursued a project titled, Designing Spaces, Mapping Disciplines: Toward Better Collaboration Between Writing Centers and Libraries. This project examined the following questions: How can writing center theory and practice, and core principles in libraries, inform each other and push each other toward better collaborative models? Given their similarities and differences, how can libraries and writing centers collaborate in physical and virtual spaces? Through rhetorical analysis, Jen was able

to complete the project and present her work to the East Central Writing Centers Association, as well as GVSU community.

In recognition of her work, Jen was named Leader of the Year from the East Central

Writing Centers Association ECWCA serves writing centers in high schools, colleges and

universities in six states.

Research Protections Program

The Research Protections Program (RPP) coordinates compliance with research ethics standards and federal and state laws and regulations, and provides training and education resources to several GVSU programs to ensure the responsible conduct of research.

11

Human Research Protections Program

The Human Research Protections Program (RPP) initiated efforts in 2011 to design a comprehensive policy and procedure manual for human subjects research. This manual, when completed, will help ensure clear and consistent communication with our research community and compliance with GVSU research standards. These governing policies will enable Grand Valley to enter into external institutional agreements and reduce existing barriers to collaborative research while maintaining high ethical standards.

Review Turnaraound

12

Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee

Responsible Conduct of ResearchIn Fall 2010, the Research Protections Program (RPP) within CSCE designed a university-wide initiative to develop a comprehensive training program in the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) according to national guidelines. Professor Gordon Alderink from Meijer’s Honors College was selected as task force chair, key consultants were assigned from the CSCE and Provost Offi ce, and each College Dean appointed one representative. The task force met for six months and successfully developed a multi-year strategic plan that was submitted to the Provost on June 15, 2011. This plan will serve as the blueprint for developing a formal infrastructure for further research development at GVSU over the next fi ve years.

Inter-Institutional Agreements for ResearchThe RPP initiated meetings with Spectrum, Trinity-St. Mary’s and Metro hospitals, Michigan State University, and Van Andel Research Institute to develop agreements for conducting collaborative research activities involving human subjects. These agreements will be developed over the coming year to establish consistent and verifi able assurances for maintaining the highest ethics standards in research while streamlining the review and approval processes for multi-site collaborative studies.

13

Gayle DavisProvost

Robert SmartExecutive Director

CSCE

Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship

(616) 331-8100

Research and Development

(616) 331-2281

Office of Sponsored Programs

(616) 331-6826

Research Protections(616) 331-3197

Paul Reitemeier, Chair, Human Research

Review Committee

Michael LombardoChair, Institutional

Animal Care and Use Committee

Christina MoordResearch Protections

Coordinator

Christine Chamberlain

Director

Beverly DickinsonGrants and Contracts

Specialist

Casey Thelenwood

Grants and Contracts Specialist

Shirley DilworthOSP Assistant

Susan MendozaDirector

Shelley SickreyOffice Coordinator

Brad WallarChair, Research and

Development Committee

Jean MoselerCSCE Assistant

www.gvsu.edu/csce