Southeastern NEWS
Southeastern Louisiana University
Office of University Relations
SLU 880, Hammond, LA 70402
504/549-2341/fax 504-549-2061
publicinfo@selu.edu
www.selu.edu/NewsEvents
Date: 4/20/98
Contact: Christina Chapple 22
SLU STUDENTS WIN "OSCARS"
HAMMOND -- Oscars aren't just for movie stars anymore.
Southeastern Louisiana University students are also winning "OSCARS" -- Office of
Student Creative Activities and Research grants -- through a new program sponsored by the
College of Arts and Sciences.
A component of Southeastern's new service-learning program, "Connections," OSCAR
brings together students and faculty interested in collaborating on research or creative activity,
explained Connections Director Michael Greene. The program offers $1,500 grants to individual
students or $3,000 awards to student teams for supplies, equipment or travel related to their
projects.
Southeastern President Sally Clausen has called OSCAR "an excellent way to encourage
and reward undergraduate research."
"The perfect fusion of teaching and professional activities occurs when a student becomes
actively involved with a research or creative endeavor in collaboration with a faculty member,"
said College of Arts and Sciences aDean John Miller. "This one-one-one contact between the
student and the faculty memberis teaching in its purest form."
OSCAR debuted this spring, with funding divided among nine students and three student
teams. The students conducted research on projects ranging from water quality monitoring in
Lake Pontchartrain to analyzing geographical trends in campus crime. OSCAR funds helped the
nine-member Chamber Winds ensemble travel to Honduras to perform and to teach high school
musicians.
On April 30, the public can see what this first group of OSCAR winners has
accomplished. The students will display posters illustrating their research in the lobby of the
Music Recital Hall prior to the College of Arts and Sciences' 2 p.m. honors convocation and will
be available for questions before and after the event.
The students, their projects and supervising professors are
-- Ronald L. Sicard of Baton Rouge, Biological Sciences, "A Greenhouse Study to
Determine the Effects of Saltwater Intrusion and Different Flooding Levels on Three Species of
Sagittaria; supervised by biological sciences professor Gary Shaffer.
-- Rebecca Souther of Ponchatoula, Biological Sciences," The Effect of Submergence,
Light Regime, Nutrient Augmentation, and Aeration on Two Age Classes of Bald Cypress
Seedling," also supervised by Shaffer.
-- Mervin Basile of Holden, Chemistry and Physics, "Theoretical Studies of the
Mechanism of Atmospheric Ozone Degradation," supervised by chemistry professor William A.
Parkinson.
-- Mark Helper of Covington, Kristye Tullis of Greenwell Springs and Leeann Hudspeth
of Amite, Chemistry and Physics, "Water Quality Monitoring in Lake Pontchartrain," supervised
by chemistry professor Brad Wurm.
-- Kurt Hery of Jefferson, Chemistry and Physics, "Study of the Refractive Index
Increment of Polyelectrolytes and Neutral Polymers," supervised by chemistry professor David
Norwood.
-- Connie Monceaux of Berwick, Chemistry and Physics, "Kinetics of Superoxide
Dismutase," supervised by chemistry professor Samira Barghouthi.
-- Tina Tassara of Bogalusa and Laura Schlecht of Brusly, Chemistry and Physics, "Ion
Channel Studies of Biological Chart," supervised by physics professor Kandiah "Mani"
Manivannan.
-- Jennifer Bowles of Hammond, Chemistry and Physics, "Chemical Analkysis of
Kombucha-Fermented Tea," also supervised by Barghouthi.
-- Michael J. Moore of Baton Rouge, Chemistry and Physics, "Synthesis of Novel Star
Polymers," supervised by chemistry professor Drew Poche.
-- Terry O'Mara of Ponchatoula, Florida Parishes Social Science Research Center, "A
Geographical Trend Analysis of Southeastern Louisiana University Campus Crime," supervised
by sociology professor Bonnie Lewis.
-- Evette Simmons of Covington, Psychology, "Cue-elicited Rearing in the Rat:
Conditioned Withdrawal vs. Exploration," supervised by psychology professorJulian L.
Azorlosa..
The Chamber Winds students who toured Honduras were Marcia Lyons of Chalmette;
David Petit of Luling; Charlie Forrest and Brennan Arceneaux of Hammond; Don Woods of
Decatur, Ala.; Jason Rusk of Meraux, and Julie Legleu, Brock Ballow, Rahni Kennedy, and
Matthew McLean of Baton Rouge. The Chamber Winds is directed by Southeastern Director of
Bands Frank Dubuy.
OSCAR falls under the umbrella of Connections, an ambitious new service-learning
program that uses environmental service projects as a tool to implement science and mathematics
education reform. Connections is sponsored by the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and Education.
About 200 Southeastern students in six courses are participating this semester in
Connections-related activities. Projects range from creating an environmental awarness program
and manual for Global Wildlife Center to the assisting with the clean-up of Mile Branch in
Covington. At least three additional faculty members have committed to offering service
components in the fall 1998 semester.
Service-learning "offers students a dramatically enhanced, hands on learning experience,"
said Greene. Students enrolled in Connections-related classes are "fulfilling a community need
while taking a college course," Green said. "But, we're not talking about just picking up trash to
make yourself feel good," he added. "Activities are tightly integrated into academic curriculum."
Adding hands-on experience to classroom learning enhances the relevence of the subject,
Greene said. "Students often ask 'what's the point' of what they are learning. Service-learning
shows them how what they are studying will affect the real world."
For additional information about Connections and OSCAR, contact Greene at 504-549-
3600 or mgreene@selu.edu.