This semester, student Dana Bauer sent her senior honors thesis to about 12,000 people. But she wasn't being pushy. Her thesis is a special issue of an award-winning magazine published by the Office of the Vice President for Research at Penn State.
Bauer, a general science major and English minor from Kennett Square, is the first student to serve as editor of a special issue of Research/Penn State. Bauer developed the issue, which focuses on undergraduate research, with six student writers.
The magazine has stories about students in the Schreyer Honors College and others using theatre to make a point; taking digital photos and enhancing them with computer software; going to the Andes to dig for potatoes; and prying information out of aphids with genetic engineering techniques. There also are short pieces on stoneflies, El Niño, rural development, dinosaurs, walking on two feet and building rockets.
The special issue about student research was itself a student research project. Bauer was researching how to put out a magazine as well as actually doing the work of writing and editing. The issue hit the street in September.
Bauer and Nancy Marie Brown, the magazine's usual editor and director of research publications, worked together to develop a proposal for a student issue of the magazine.
John Cahir, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, and Rodney Erickson, vice president for research and dean of the graduate school, agreed to finance the project.
"We funded Dana's proposal," Cahir said, "because this was a way to help tell the exciting and not-so-well-known undergraduate research story. Working on the magazine enabled students, as part of their own scholarly work, to find challenging student research projects and then describe them in ways that captured the excitement of student and faculty collaborations. This is active learning at its best and active learning is something we want for all students."
For a look at the special edition of Research/Penn State, point your Web browser to http://www2.deasy.psu.edu/rps/sep98/.