CMU 2010

Leveraging Institutional Resources

A Summary of Projects Funded with CMU 2010 Matching Support

 

Kathy Benison, Geology

The Evolution of Extremely Acid Lakes and Groundwaters in Western Australia

$257,590 National Science Foundation grant

$7,000 CMU 2010 match

 

This project will drill ten acid and neutral salt lakes in southern Western Australia to recover subsurface sediment and sedimentary rock samples.  These core samples will be analyzed to determine the environments, climate, biology, and surface and groundwater chemistry through the Quaternary (past ~1.6 million years). The overarching goal is to trace the evolution of these extreme environments and their relationship to climate, host rock weathering, and biological influences.  Drilling and preliminary analyses will last ~3 months and drilling must be performed during the Australian summer (January - March), when these lakes are dry and their salt crusts can support a drill rig.  CMU2010 matching funds are being used to help "buy out" Benison's teaching duties for the Spring 2008 semester while she directs the drilling effort in Australia.  Undergraduate support from NSF had to be elimated in the revised budget, but Benison plans to recruit 1-2 undergraduate students to work on the core samples when they are returned from Australia.  

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Margaret DeSormes, Human Environmental Studies

Collaborative Child Care Program

$117,690 EightCAP, Inc. grant

$14,000 CMU 2010 match

 

The collaborative child care program is collaboration between CMU and EightCap, Inc. Head Start, a federally funded Head Start Agency.  At the federal level, grantees receiving Head Start funds are required to contribute a 50% match.  This match can include material donations, volunteer hours, and actual monetary contributions.  Matching funds from ORSP help with the financial operations of the program here on campus.  In addition, all students that spend time with the children in this program are contributing their own in-kind donation of time. 

This project was developed so that CMU students in HEV classes could have more realistic, hands on experience with preschool age children from low income families. The Human Growth and Development lab currently incorporates 32 Head start children into their program. Students taking HEV 303, 402 and 409 (all Child Development majors and minors in Elementary Education as well as all Child Development: Early Childhood Concentration majors) are directly involved with the children of this program. The lab has a total of 3 classrooms with about 400 child development students participating each year.  The knowledge and experience gained through this experience (partly funded through this grant) has a lasting impact on early childhood education throughout Michigan and the U.S. as these students graduate and continue their careers educating young children.

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Mike Libbee, Geography

The Geography and History Project: Developing a National Resource Base $207,360 Michigan Department of Education grant

$200,000 National Geographic Education Foundation grant

$22,000 CMU 2010 match

 

The intent of the project is to provide a resource for states whose K-12 curriculum is includes courses which integrate history and geography.  The project has four major objectives:

1)  Identify and evaluate existing history curriculum materials that have a significant geographic component and geography curriculum materials that are relevant for a specific historical topic.

2) Survey the resource inventory to identify significant gaps in coverage and develop a system for organizing geography/history materials so that state alliances and school districts can easily select material to meet their needs. 

3)  Develop new prototype resources in history, (especially in world history) and geography to enhance geographic literacy.

4) Make the resources available within the four core states via workshops, and to other Alliances via the web. 

The NGEF Project began in January of 2006 and has identified key people, developed drafts of ways to organize and access material, identified a wide range of existing materials, and held its first institute for teachers and faculty from four states to both identify and create materials.

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Valeri Petkov, Physics

Mixed Glass Former Cation and Anion Effects on Glass Structures, Properties, and Dynamics: An International Collaborative Materials World Network Proposal

$284,744 National Science Foundation grant

$7,000 CMU 2010 match

 

The project aims at understanding and optimizing the ionic, mostly Li, conductivity in oxide and non-oxide glasses.  This Materials World Network (MWN) project examines the universally observed Mixed Glass Former Effect (MGFE) where independent of the mobile cation, independent of the two glass formers used, independent of whether the system is all-oxide, all-sulfide, or even mixed oxy-sulfide, and independent of the over-all mobile cation concentration, the ionic conductivities of Mixed Glass Former (MGF) glasses are always higher than that of the two parent binary glasses at the same level of mobile cation concentration. With the recent and well known problems of liquid polymer electrolytes in millions of lithium batteries, there is a renewed interest in solid electrolytes for lithium batteries. Such MGF glasses make ideal candidates due to their anomalously high ionic conductivities and other advantageous properties brought about by the mixing of the glass formers. However, before wide spread application of these electrolytes can be implemented, a detailed understanding of the MGFE must be developed first. Both short and intermediate range structures of the glasses are being examined using high resolution x-ray diffraction. The project synergistically combines both structural and dynamical studies of the MGFE in oxide, sulfide, and oxy-sulfide glasses to determine the nature, extent, and role of the favorable structural features of MGFE glasses. Lab members involved in the project include undergraduate student: Dan Simon, graduate student Daniel O'Brien, and post-doctoral fellow Daniel LeMessurier
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Mary Tecklenburg, Physics

Spectroscopy of Protein Mediation of Bone Mineralization

$226,409 National Institutes of Health grant

$7,000 CMU 2010 match

 

The proposed work to be done at CMU is a synergistic study to unveil the structural features of the transformation from octacalcium phosphate (OCP) to apatite.  This includes an experimental and a theoretical component. OCP will be prepared by methods that minimize the crystallite size in order to mimic its role as a precursor to bone apatite. The effect of carbonate will be assessed by preparing carbonate substituted OCP.  Kinetics of the fast initial phase of OCP to apatite hydrolysis will be monitored in situ by Raman spectroscopy to identify changes in the mineral structure. The effect of several non-collagenous proteins and inorganic ions on the transformation kinetics will be assessed. Theoretical models of OCP will also be developed by ab initio calculations  and used to analyze the evolution of the structure as OCP is transformed to apatite by diffusion of Ca2+ ions in and water or HPO42- ions out.  This combination of theoretical and computational models will complement the tissue studies and provide a framework for interpretation of mineral transformation in vivo.

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Gail Scukanec and Lynn Curry, Graduate Studies

CMU's Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program

$231,448 U.S. Dept. of Education grant

$30,000 CMU 2010 match

 

The primary goal of the McNair Program at Central Michigan University (CMU) is to increase the number of disadvantaged students attaining doctoral degrees. To this end, we service low income, first generation college students and those underrepresented in graduate education (including African Americans, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders) and help prepare them for graduate school. This population of students benefits greatly from this type of program because they typically lack the skills needed to pursue a higher education, they come from backgrounds that didn’t emphasize education and they don’t have the knowledge and training needed to excel at the graduate level. CMU McNair scholars engage in original research under the guidance of a faculty research mentor, receive intensive training for the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) in addition to participating in a significant number of graduate school seminars/workshops aimed at helping them successfully apply to and become accepted at their top-choice institutions. Scholars receive support to present their research at professional conferences in their discipline and visit prospective graduate programs. 

 

Since its inception in 1999, 65 CMU McNair scholars have successfully completed the program and graduated from CMU. Of those students, 19 have completed master’s degrees, 24 are currently enrolled in master’s programs (some with the intent of continuing on to the doctorate) and six are currently enrolled in doctoral level programs. We anticipate achieving our first Ph.D. this academic year and possibly one each year following now that we have a significant number of students in the pipeline.

Program objectives follow:

90% of McNair participants will complete research and scholarly activities that will directly impact their educational progression each McNair Program academic year.

75% of new participants served in each McNair Program academic year will attain a baccalaureate degree within three (3) years.

50% of bachelor’s degree recipients will enroll in a post-baccalaureate program by the fall of the term of the academic year immediately following completion of that degree.

8% of McNair Program participants will attain a doctoral degree within ten (10) years of the attainment of the bachelor’s degree.

Undergraduate scholars from 2006-2007 were: 

Tiauna Boyd – Child Development (Mentor: Phame Camarena); Laura Daniels – Psychology (Mentor: Deb Poole); Maria Jacome – Psychology (Mentor: Terry Beehr); Mark Johnson – Soc: Criminal Justice (Mentor: Katherine Rosier ); Lynsey Johnson – Psychology (Mentor: Stuart Quirk); Ryan Kostanecki – History/Political Science (Mentor: Chris Owens); Adam Mausolf – Human Devt/Recreation (Mentor: Jeff Angera); Beth Anne Murphy – Communication Disorders (Mentor: Ann Ratcliff); Natalie Nix – Spanish (Mentor: Vania Barraza Toledo); Allie Schafer – Mechanical Engineering (Mentor: Terry Lerch); Taryn Serwatowski – Geology (Mentor: Sven Morgan); Tamara Taylor – Pschology (Mentor: Sandy Morgan); Charles Terry – Education (Mentor: Peggy Burke); Rebecca Thornton – Communication (Mentor: Leslie Withers); Amber Turner-Moore – Business Admin (Mentor: Jodi Brookins-Fisher); Erin Westman – Anthropology/History (Mentor: John Robertson).

The McNair staff are currently recruiting scholars for the 2007-08 programmatic year.

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Montisa Watkins, Institutional Diversity

Central Michigan University/Northern High School Upward Bound Program

$1,250,000 U.S. Dept. of Education grant

$50,000 CMU 2010 match

 

The CMU Upward Bound Program will serve 50 students at Northern High School in Detroit. The CMU Upward Bound program selected Northern because of its conformity with U.S. Department of Education guidelines, in particular, and the large number of first-generation, low-income students that lack important services necessary for academic achievement.  This lack is evident in the scores from Detroit’s class of 2005; eight out of 10 students failed to meet Michigan standards in writing, science and math. Scores from the Northern High School class of 2006 are even more staggering.  Not one student at Northern exceeded the state standards for both math and writing and only one student in the entire high school exceeded the Michigan standards for reading.  Ninety two percent (92%) of the students did not meet the Michigan standards for math and 69% for reading.  Accordingly, major program emphasis is placed on providing a customized and prescriptive educational plan based on the individual needs of those students from Northern High School.   

(a) Academic Improvement on Standardized Test:

70% of all UB participants, who at the time of entrance into the project had an expected high school graduation date during the school year, will have achieved at the proficient level during high school on state assessments in reading/language arts and math.

(b) Project Retention

75% of 9th, 10th, and 11th grade project participants served during each school year will continue to participate in the Upward Bound Project during the next school year.

(c) Postsecondary Enrollment:

75% of all UB participants, who at the time of entrance into the project had an expected graduation date during the school year, will enroll in a program of postsecondary education by the fall term immediately following the expected graduation date from high school. 

(d) Postsecondary Persistence:

65% of all UB participants who enrolled in a program of postsecondary education during the fall term immediately following high school graduation will be enrolled for the fall term of the second academic year.