College | Short Read
Im-peck-able Research:
Ramapo undergrads present at regional conference
By Lisa Ambrose, Director of Communications & Public Relations | Winter 2023
The fall semester proved to be bountiful for students and their faculty sponsors at the 2022 COPLAC Northeast Regional Undergraduate Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity Conference (URSCA), hosted by Eastern Connecticut State University in Windham. The conference, sponsored by the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges, provides an opportunity for students to present the results of their undergraduate research and discuss their work with faculty and peers at COPLAC institutions.
Ramapo students are not strangers to the annual conference, thanks to mentorship by faculty members such as Dr. Eric Wiener, Associate Professor of Environmental Science. “The best part about faculty-student research at Ramapo is that student researchers are intimately involved with all aspects of the research…it is even better than what most undergraduate students can find at research universities, where faculty tend to focus more on graduate students. You should hear the feedback I get from colleagues at conferences. They are consistently impressed with the experience and knowledge of our students.”
It was the work conducted by Karyssa Cendaña ’23 and Nathan Laduke ’23 over which Wiener served as faculty research advisor and sponsor. They completed a semester-long, intensive field project about woodpecker foraging in a floodplain forest at the Ramapo Valley County Reservation. Cendaña, a fourth-year student, became interested in conducting research while taking an avian ecology course, which led to joining the Theoretical and Applied Sciences Research Honors Program. “Our project also focused on whether woodpeckers are impacted by the decline of white ash trees, and learning more about how different organisms interact with one another,” said Cendaña. The Ramapo Valley County Reservation is less than one mile from campus, making it an ideal location for students interested in environmental science to conduct fieldwork. “Conducting research in the reservation was both physically and academically challenging, and it gave me hands-on experience to use the skills that I’m always looking to develop as a student, such as attention to detail.”
A liberal arts education offers expansive intellectual grounding in all kinds of humanistic inquiry. It provides the opportunity to explore ideas and issues across not only the humanities and the arts, but the natural and social sciences as well. A pillar of such an education at Ramapo College is hands-on learning. Cendaña, who will graduate this May, said that one of the reasons she chose to attend Ramapo College is because of the opportunities the school offers for undergraduate students to work directly with faculty members. “I’m so thankful to attend a school with such passionate faculty and professors who really want to see students grow, and the faculty research programs are something I will always consider to be a fundamental part of my undergraduate career.” Opportunities like these, where faculty and students engage directly in research and then present it, define what makes Ramapo unique compared to its counterparts.
2022 COPLAC Northeast Regional URSCA
Additional Presentations by Ramapo College Students
Student: Trent Montgomery ’23
Digital story presentation: Ain’t That A Bite?
Faculty sponsor: Monika Giacoppe, Associate Professor of Comparative World Literature
Student: Genesis Siverio ’23
Oral paper presentation: Fleabag: Maneuvering Feminism & Performing Femininity
Faculty sponsor: Todd Barnes, Professor of Literature
Student: Erin Ward ’24
Visual art presentation: Embroidered Self-Portrait
Faculty sponsor: Jacquelyn Skrzynski, Associate Professor of Art (Painting & Drawing)