During intermission at Thursday night’s Wind Ensemble concert, Provost Betty Stewart and Vice President Robert Clark recognized 56 researchers from the Undergraduate Research and Creativity Forum, including researchers that presented 13 oral presentations.
Wadzanai Dzvurumi, marketing senior, and her group won first place for best oral presentation from the Dillard College of Business for their presentation on antecedents and outcomes of brand loyalty.
Their research was about what elements make someone loyal to a brand.
“We started off by studying the factors affecting brand loyalty like time, location and resources,” Dzvurumi said. “We went out with surveys and we came back and ran them through a program called IBMSE, and found out the different factors that affect brand loyalty such as income, education and age.”
Dzvurumi and her group members started their research in January, and she said she’s happy to be recognized.
“It feels good just knowing that all the hard work my team and I put in paid off,” Dzvurumi said. “I personally feel a sense of achievement and it only just motivates me to do more research next semester or in the future.”
Kristin Lanier, theater senior, also won first place for the Lamar D. Fain College of Fain Arts for her project, Directing a One-Act Play, which she had to do for her senior capstone for her degree.
Lanier said it was a six-month process, and she’s glad to be recognized for her work.
“It’s a good feeling,” Lanier said. “I worked so hard on my show, so it’s good to see other people saw value in it.”
Buddy Richison, percussion performance senior, won Best Interdisciplinary for his groups project With Your Own Hands, which had eight demonstrations from theater, nursing, and dental hygiene on why hands are important.
“I didn’t expect to get anything, out of the blue we won and that was pretty cool,” Richison said.
Madeline Parker, political science and international studies senior, and her group placed third for best oral presentation in the Prothro-Yeager College of Humanities and Social Sciences for their project The Measurements of Violence Against Women: A Case Study Analysis of Empirical Scales.
Parker said her group members have been working on this for two semesters, and researched case studies of four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Honduras and Venezuela. They looked at the rape laws and codes, sexual assaults inside this countries compared to the scale that is in the international community for violence against women, and where those countries fall on that scale.
Parker said her group worked very hard, and it’s great they were recognized.
“It feels amazing, my group and I did a lot of work,” Parker said. “We put in the work, we put in the time and it feels good to be recognized.”
Her group also presented it at a International Studies Association Conference, and Parker said she personally has plans for the work she did to be published with the Redwine Honors Booklet with Stewart.
“We’re just hoping that this brings awareness to what is happening in the world,” Parker said.
Megan Piehler, mass communication senior, tied for second place for best oral presentation in Lamar D. Fain College of Fine Arts for her presentation Police Brutality: Is is Perception or Reality?
Piehler has been working on this since last year, and has conducted public opinion polls and compared them with statistical data to find out if police brutality is real, or if it just seems real. Piehler said she loved doing the research, and it’s cool to be recognized for it.
“It’s an incredible honor,” Piehler said. “I definitely enjoyed the research part of it, so it’s an honor to be rewarded for the research. I was just doing it because it interests me.”
Piehler said she plans to do more written research, and try to get it published.
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