Nearly 20 students from the three University of Wisconsin-Platteville campuses participated in the 16th annual Research in the Rotunda on April 17 in Madison, Wisconsin. More than 120 undergraduate researchers and their faculty mentors from across the UW System filled the Capitol and presented their findings with legislators, state leaders, alumni and the public.
UW-Platteville had the most research projects selected from the UW System with nine. “The students are what the enterprise of higher education is about. You represent the best, the brightest, the most energetic and tremendous students on our campuses,” said Chancellor Dennis J. Shields. “You are great leaders and you demonstrated the value the University of Wisconsin-Platteville represents for the state of Wisconsin.”
Chancellor Shields also acknowledged the UW-Platteville faculty for their leadership. “You are the difference makers. You’re the ones at a teaching institution where you have tremendous teaching modes. It’s your commitment to research and to these students to give them hands-on undergraduate research experience. You have my thanks for your commitment, dedication and investment of your time and energy in this endeavor,” he said.
As students shared their findings on a variety of topics, senior biology major Alex Harman of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, wants the public to understand the importance of his research, assessing the effects of honeybees and surrounding habitat on native pollinators. “Pollinators are super important to our economy, they pollinate all of our fruits, they pollinate all of our flowers, a lot of our lives are dependent on pollinators,” he said.
Harman who will be attending graduate school at Oklahoma State in August hopes his study on pollinators will leave a lasting impact on UW-Platteville’s campus. “One thing that we have done, is our bee squad that takes care of our bee hives on campus, we now have a native pollinator subset of them, so we are working on getting native pollinator hotels on campus and providing information about them. Hopefully, that will stick around and that can be the legacy of this research,” he said.
“I love being able to see everyone’s research and seeing future people I could collaborate with and other people who have similar ideas,” said psychology major Dominique Kornely. “It means a lot to me that the senators are here and that they are able to reach out to the students and give us an avenue of expressing our concerns and our voice for our campus,” she said.
Kornely a native of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, presented her research on the effect of psychosocial stress on substance use behavior said she’s grateful for her experience at UW-Platteville. Kornely is graduating in May and will attend graduate school at the University of Northern Iowa. “This is the best opportunity I ever could have gotten in my undergraduate career. I feel being a part of this research and being a part of the summer undergraduate scholar program has helped me grow as a person, researcher and as a student. It’s given me so many opportunities to be able develop professionally and to be able to take these skills out to graduate school.”
Another student presenting at Research in the Rotunda, Esther Considine, who will receive her associate degree in May from UW-Platteville Baraboo Sauk County, did not think she was going to continue her education after high school. “Baraboo has been such a great learning curve for me. I didn’t even think about going to college, and then I went to Baraboo and said, ‘I’m coming back.’ The professors here want me to learn and then I got enough confidence to do this. To represent what they have done for me as a person and all the other students it means a lot to represent the whole school,” she said.
UW-Platteville Richland student Chris Hynek focused his research on the importance of public history. His message was the importance of education. “When I get to talk to some of the people that are making choices as far as budgets, I hope that they’ll understand that we do make progress through all of the education, public history, going to school. It’s those kinds of things that move our society forward,” he said.
As students presented their topics in front of dozens of people, they also took in the magnitude of being at the state capitol. “It’s fantastic I have never been to the Capitol before and I have never done research before, this is exciting for me and it’s a great project,” said senior civil engineering major and Winona, Minnesota, native, Ian Breitlow.
Breitlow along with his research partner Katherine Wardinski, a senior environmental engineering major from West Allis, Wisconsin, are studying the properties of bentonite to improve waste containment solutions.
“UW-Platteville is more of a teaching-focused institution and it’s a really unique opportunity to be able to do the research as an undergraduate,” Wardinski said. “I know for me it was a deciding factor that I do want to go on to grad school and continue doing research, without the exposure in undergrad I would not have known that’s what I wanted to do.” Following her graduation in May, Wardinski will be attending graduate school at Virginia Tech.
UW-Platteville students met with lawmakers representing their hometowns as well as additional elected officials and their offices.