NGU Students Present Research to Faculty, Staff, and Peers
Posted on: December 5, 2023
Tigerville, SC (December 5, 2023) Following months of research on a variety of topics, North Greenville University students in the School of Communication and College of Humanities and Sciences presented their findings to faculty, staff, and peers on Thursday, November 30.
“It’s an important step for students to pursue excellence – not just in a studio or hands-on application – but also through theory and research,” said Randall King, associate dean of NGU’s School of Communication. “This project gives them that chance to go deeper.”
Communication students gave presentations and fielded questions on their topics on Thursday morning.
“They’ve conducted surveys on campus, analyzed media content or conducted qualitative interviews with their peers to arrive at different conclusions – sometimes supporting published findings and sometimes getting interesting and differing results,” King said. “It’s exciting to see students discover new knowledge – not just research papers based on established communication literature from the library.”
Dr. Shannon Dobson and Dr. Christina Eddy started the tradition for College of Humanities and Sciences students 13 years ago.
“We always had the dream of this being a campus-wide event,” said Dobson, who serves as chair for NGU’s Department of Psychology. “It’s quality research, and it prepares them for whatever lies ahead. The students are presenting to family members, other students, and various faculty members. It’s a great experience and one that they’ve spent a lot of time preparing for.”
Jake Monroe, a junior health science major, said his research on sleep and inflammatory diseases was a personal endeavor.
“It was a topic that was important to me because inflammatory disease is something my family deals a lot with,” Monroe said. “I wanted to see if there was a correlation between the kind of sleep someone gets and these particular illnesses, and what I found was that there was a strong correlation.”
“There was definitely some added motivation on this project to get the work done and make sure it’s done right,” he said. “For me, I sent all of my findings to my family so they could be armed with information to better their situation.”
Seniors Elizabeth Huffman, psychology major, and Victoria Kirby, political science major, said the research projects greatly prepared them to further their education.
Huffman presented on parenting styles, depression, and anxiety, while Kirby presented research on color theory in voting behavior.
“It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s very rewarding,” Huffman said. “I was nervous about this project, but it turned out to be very fun conducting the research and learning more about the topic.”
“This is something I’ve been working hard on since August,” added Kirby. “To see it up there on the wall is rewarding and freeing.”
