Fall 2012
Strengthening Families Program
GEL 433
Project Lead: Roberta Johnson
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: UVU stduents, in collaboration with the Alpine School District, DCFS, and MADD, conducted simultaneous programs at four sites for at-risk families. These programs have proven to be effective in increasing resilience and reducing risk factors for behavioral, emotional, academic and social problems in youth while improving family relationships and paretning skills. Students had the opportunity to help families improve relationships and learn life skills. They were able to practice skills they otherwise would only read and hear about in the classroom.
Forgotten City in the Desert
GEL 444
Project Lead: Roger Blomquist
Amount: $9,000.00
Description: Most Americans, including those citizens living in the State of Utah, know or understand little surrounding the history and establishment of The Federal Camp Floyd and the national issues being dealt with, leading to its creation. To fill this gap, at the request of Camp Floyd, we have produced a ten minute documentary which has covered these little known circumstances. The film recovers lost American history, will bring more visitors to the Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn Park and Museum, and has generated more interest in the community. In an ultimate attempt to reach as broad as audience as possible, three versions of the film will eventually be produces; one ten minute version for The Federal Camp Floyd/Stagecoach Inn State Park and Museum, one thiry minute version to be distributed to the 142 middle schools in Utah and one full length version for retail sale to the general public and for braodcast on PBS, Military, or History channel.
Utah Women's Walk
GEL 413
Project Lead: Michele Welch
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Utah Women’s Walk is an oral history project designed to honor the contributions of Utah women. The project has brought recognition to, and shown gratitute for, the lives of notable women who have made significant contributions in various aspects of life in the state of Utah over the past one hundred and sixty years. Currently UVU American Studies and English students are involved in interviewing, researching and writing about Utah women in their field of study or who they admire most.
Attitudes of Utahns toward the Death Penalty
GEL 445
Project Lead: Sandy McGunigall-Smith
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Studies have been conducted throughout the United States on its citizens and their varying attitudes concerning the death penalty. The Utah legislature has recently expressed interest in the abolition of the death penalty due to the high financial costs involved, financial costs that far outweigh those of keeping a person in prison for life. This project allowed students to explore Utah residents’ opinions regarding the death penalty. The Utah legislature has shown interest in the findings of this study. The goal of this project is to provide the Legislature, science and society with a reliable and valid data set on this topic. Students designed and implemented research that measured attitudes towards the death penalty.
Breast Cancer Research
GEL 421
Project Lead: Timothy Doyle
Amount: $9,972.00
Description: Utah Valley University students perform research on the ultrasonic detection of breast cancer at UVU and at the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) in collaboration with HCI cancer researchers. The research is being performed on breast tumors from mice, and will eventually lead to new methods for detecting microsopic cnacer during surgery to ensure all of the cancerous tissue has been removed.
Dental Service Trip to Samoa
GEL 449
Project Lead: Dianne Knight
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: The dental hygiene studetns at UVU had a great opportunity to do engaged learning on the island of Samoa, where there is a dental clinic set up which is always in need of volunteers. The students were able to use the skills that they have learned in the classroom and clinic in a real-world service setting to educate and work on challenging patients, and have learning situations that they could not expereinece in their own clinic.
Genomic Data for Mayflies and Iguanas
GEL 450
Project Lead: Heath Ogden
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Genomic approaches for studyign the phylogenetic pattren of organisms are becoming more commonplace in systematics and evolution research. This project acquired and anazlyed next generation data for a species of maylifes and iguanas. The results were used as preliminary results on a more comprehensive externally funded grant submission.
Summer Youth Math Camp
GEL 452
Project Lead: Roxanne Brinkerhoff
Amount: $9,689.00
Description: This project engaged math education and secondary education majors in preseting graduate level mathematics concpets to elementary school age children during the Summer Youth Math Camp. The aim of the camp is to change attitudes towards math in young children. Research shows negative math opinions develop as early as the age of nine. The topics presented were simplified to show students that math can be enjoyable, understandable and applicable. The UVU students had the opportunity to gain valuable career experience and collect activites for their future classrooms.
Alternative Energy Fueling Station
GEL 453
Project Lead: Richard Hartley
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: This project involved putting together an influential group of community resources to build an alternative energy home with garage fueling station. This home will generate its own energy needs for both home and cars. Phase one of the project invoved concept, design, modeling, research, and review. It engaged students, faculty, and significant community affiliations and resources.
Sun Marker
GEL 454
Project Lead: David Rogers
Amount: $3,125.00
Description: Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum in Blanding, Utah, houses a sculpture that interacts with the sun, named Sun Marker. Sun Marker functions as a calenderar, with dramatic plays of light on the solstices and equinoxes; the sculpture, created by Joe Pachak, is inspired by sun-watching customs of the prehistoric cultures in the area. This project allowed for the creation of a 5-10 minute informative video to educate visitors about how the sculpture works and its significance as a scientific case study.
Developing Artist Program
GEL 391
Project Lead: Christopher Holmes
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Through collaboration with the Utah Lyric Opera, vocal area students engaged with professionals from the music performance community. This project consisted of two parts which provided 1) a month long program with daily training from working professional musicians and instructors, and performace projects that feature the developing artists, including opea, opera scenes, and concerts and 2) a full length opera at the Covey Center for the Arts where students will interact and perform with established professional artists, orchestra, conductor, stage director, and coaches.
UVU Aerial Imagery and LiDAR
GEL 455
Project Lead: Sowmya Selvarajan
Amount: $8,305.00
Description: This project involved the acquisition of high resolution aerial imagery and airborne LiDAR data for UVU Main campus as a collabrative approach from a community partner and students and facutly of the Geomatics department. The acquisition of airborne LiDAR data was the most advanced technique of data acquisition to obtain elevation values. The entire UVU main campus was digitally modeled with this in conjunction with the aerial imagery. The availabilty of this data with UVU established UVU in the utilization of the pioneering geospatial technologies.
Annual Leadership Conference
GEL 458
Project Lead: Kirk Young
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: The new Annual Leadership Conference sponsored by UVU’s Center for the Advancement of Leadership and other UVU partners provided a forum wherein student-leaders from local high schools can receive leadership training, share “best practice” ideas with each other, and be introduced to UVU’s campus, academic programs, and student life.
Prosthetic Global Outreach
GEL 410
Project Lead:Julie Baker Bagley
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Students delivered well-needed prosthetics to amputees, which provided mutual beneficial outcomes for both the Guatemalan community as well as supported UVU students in becoming life-long humanitarians and scholars.
SCUP Mentor-Tutoring Project
GEL 411
Project Lead:Liz Andrus
Amount: $7,500.00
Description: Continuing an ongoing community partnership, SCUP hired and trained UVU students to provide free tutoring in partnership with United Way of Utah County and local K-12 schools. Students from this educationally disadvantaged region will increase their literacy skills, complete their weekly homework assignments, and improve their overall grades in subjects tutored.
Spring 2012
Madagascar School Project
GEL 428
Project Lead: Trudy Christensen
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: We will work with Reach the Children and several other non-profits and local businesses to 1) install & train personnel to use a computer lab and English software in an underprivileged school in Madagascar 2) install solar panels to provide income and sustainability for the project, 3) set up a micro-finance program, and 4) create documentary videos.
Project Leymebamba
GEL 429
Project Lead: Jan Bentley
Amount: $6,800.00
Description:Creating a promotional video for Hatun Runa as well as documenting the struggles of people living in Leymebamba, Peru. Once the film has been shot and edited, we would like to submit it to film festivals and charity groups and garner further exposure by having it screened. This way, we could promote awareness as well as provide the information of the non-profit to aid their organization and more importantly to those living in poverty in Peru.
Challenge Days at Timpanogos High
GEL 430
Project Lead: Steven Clark
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Introducing the Challenge Day program to Timpanogos High School and Orem Junior High to improve student engagement and connectedness, then to have those students go back and inspire their classmates do the same.
Research Writing at Capitol Reef
GEL 431
Project Lead: Linda Shelton
Amount: $2,145.00
Description: Students in English 2010 and 3020 research topics that relate to the Capitol Reef Field Station such as the geology, wildlife, plants, history, water and land use issues, sustainable energy sources, environmental studies, etc. and then visit the station to explore their topics in person and give service to the park and surrounding community.
Assault of Women at UVU
GEL 432
Project Lead: Matthew L. Duffin
Amount: $2,550.00
Description: To Survey Women at UVU to determine the amount and degree of rape and sexual assault that is occurring among our student population using the instrument in the study “Rape of Women in Utah Survey”. It will help students, administrators and others better address the safety concerns of women enrolled at UVU.
Strengthening Families 2012
GEL 433
Project Lead: Grant Richards
Amount: $10,000.00
Description:UVU students will collaborate with local schools to conduct programs for their at-risk families which are proven to be effective in increasing resilience and reducing risk factors for behavioral, emotional, academic and social problems in youth while improving family relationships and parenting skills.
Emerging Trends in Public Health
GEL 434
Project Lead: Mary V. Brown
Amount: $1,193.00
Description: UVU students will collaborate with local health departments, not-for-profit health agencies, the Utah state health department, and other health organizations to assess the perceived emerging trends and professional development needs of health educators in the state of Utah.
Fall Prevention for Seniors
GEL 435
Project Lead:Linda Kochniuk
Amount: $8,800.00
Description:This randomized, controlled, and crossover study project aims to develop, implement, and evaluate multidisciplinary and multifactorial fall prevention (MMFP) program for community-dwelling older adults to promote health and prevent falls in Utah, a state with a high growth of the population over 65.
Fit or Fat Program
GEL 436
Project Lead: Hsiu-Chin Chen
Amount: $7,110.00
Description: The goal of this project is to prevent and control an unhealthy weight either overweight or obesity for children at their early stage of life through an interactive and computerized Fit-or-Fat program regarding healthy eating and food choices.
Insect Field Guide for Capitol Reef
GEL 437
Project Lead: Heath Ogden
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: The purpose of this research is to continue the opportunity to provide students with excellent field and laboratory research opportunities and to build upon the insect field pamphlet for Capitol Reef (GEL 2011 award), which will serve as reference material for the community visiting the Park and UVU’s Field Station.
Rheumatic Rescue Program
GEL 438
Project Lead: Lori Allen
Amount: $10,000.00
Description:The worldwide Rheumatic Rescue program, currently in Samoa is a coordinated effort of indigenous and U.S. educators, medical clinicians, and government officials to confront the relatively high and costly prevalence rate of rheumatic-related heart disease, bringing the incidence rate to a more manageable and affordable level. A central asset in this life-saving program is a 40’ container of medical and educational supplies that aid in alleviating the impoverished and inadequate conditions typically found in third world and developing countries, fostering relations, and allowing effective engagement and education.
Road-Kill as DNA Resource
GEL 439
Project Lead: Catherine Stephen
Amount: $1,736.00
Description: The purpose of this project is to see what tissue types (eg. teeth, muscle, heart, etc.) from reptile road-kill specimens yield the highest quality DNA. The results would be applied, through a relationship with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR), to implement a sampling kit and guide for scientists and civilians alike. This would make road-kill a more accessible resource that could be exploited by the scientific community for genetic data.
Utah Mushroom Survey
GEL 440
Project Lead: Steven H. Emerman
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Utah mushrooms are surveyed, extracted, and chemically separated in order to determine the structures of novel small molecules that may have significant ecological, economic, and biomedical impacts.
Chamber Choir China Tour
GEL 441
Project Lead: Reed Criddle
Amount: $10,000.00
Description:The UVU Chamber Choir will embark on a May 2013 tour to Beijing, Xi’an, and Hothot, with the special invitation to participate in a two-day residency at the prestigious China Conservatory of Music in Beijing and the Xi’an Conservatory of Music in Xi’an.
Intermountain Premed Conference
GEL 442
Project Lead: Jennifer Orchard
Amount: $9,675.00
Description:UVU students are organizing a two-day, Annual Intermountain Premed Conference, collaborating with other universities, medical schools, physician assistant programs, area healthcare professionals, and community members to provide the only premedical conference in the Utah-Idaho region that educates premed students about the many different requirements for successful matriculation into medical and physician assistant schools.
UVU Student Cultural Envoys
GEL 443
Project Lead: Rusty Butler
Amount: $10,000.00
Description:Collaboration with the Asian Business Cultural International Travel Company (ABCITC) to promote cultural awareness through dance, music and song and to engage UVU Students in a serious cross-cultural exchange.
Winter 2012
2 FT Prosthetic Global Outreach
GEL 410
Project Lead: Julie Bagley
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Students delivered well-needed prosthetics to amputees, which provided mutual beneficial outcomes for both the Guatemalan community as well as support UVU students in becoming life-long humanitarians and scholars.
Tutoring for Low Income Students
GEL 411
Project Lead: Eldon L. McMurray
Amount: 9,846.20
Description: Continuing an ongoing community partnership, SCUP hired and trained UVU students to provide free tutoring in partnership with United Way of Utah County and local K-12 schools. Students from this educationally disadvantaged region will increase their literacy skills, complete their weekly homework assignments, and improve their overall grades in subjects tutored.
Data Analysis UVU Student Health
GEL 412
Project Lead: Cameron John
Amount: $4,852.00
Description: Collaborative project helped to meet data analysis needs for Student Health Services, teaching and research experience for 4 upper division students and real life data analysis experience for a Behavioral Science statistics course. The project helped to meet the statistics students with the opportunity to engage in real world statistical applications.
Utah Women’s Walk
GEL 394
Project Lead: Michele A. Welch
Amount: $ 5,440.00
Description: The Utah Women’s Walk was a project designed to bring recognition to, and show gratitude for, the lives of notable Utah women who have made significant contribution in various aspects of life in the state of Utah. The project utilized Utah Valley University American Studies students to interview and research about the lives of Utah women that most inspire them.
Hope of Asia
GEL 414
Project Lead: Andrea Fierro
Amount: $ 5,200.00
Description: The Hope of Asia project engaged students in international causes while building valuable skills in a real world environment. Countless children are forced into slavery and prostitution all over the world, even in our own city. Hope of Asia teamed up with a non-profit organization that works to stop human trafficking by rescuing children in Thailand and Cambodia from brothels and off the streets, and has founded dozens of orphanages to house them and give them an opportunity for a better life.
OSSO Project
GEL 415
Project Lead: Parker Donat
Amount: $ 3,150.00
Description:Help Orphanage Support Services Organization (OSSO) educates volunteers and the general public of the needs and conditions of orphanages throughout Ecuador by means of informational videos, social media integration, and a new website.
Sister to Sister Outreach Program
GEL 416
Project Lead: W. Kirk Love
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: The best way to bring young women into STEM majors at UVU is by engaging UVU female students in a near peer mentoring program with young women in high school and junior high. The Sister to Sister Outreach Program's primary goal to increase the earning power of women in UVU's region by recruiting more women into UVU Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math programs.
Thailand to Utah-Refugee’s Story
GEL 417
Project Lead:Michael Harper
Amount: $6,250.00
Description:Through documenting the inadequate conditions in which Thailand’s refugee families are placed, this project explored the unavoidable roadblocks that refugees encounter on their way to integration in the United States of America. These include but are not limited to: housing, language, disaffected youth, employment, and social integration. The information gathered was utilized to help ease and bring to attention the difficulties that refugees face and distributed through non-profit organizations.
Utah Make-A-Wish Benefit Concert
GEL 418
Project Lead: Kenneth Avery
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: A team of Digital Media senior project students utilized their skills and talents in project management and sound engineering to organize and promote a charity concert that helped raise funds for the Utah Make-A-Wish Foundation, promoted a positive image of Utah Valley University in the community, and enhanced and improved the students’ educational experiences.
Touring Musical by UVU Black Box
GEL 419
Project Lead: David Tinney
Amount: $5,000.00
Description: The UVU Black Box Repertory Company, the university’s top musical theatre performance group, collaborated for a second year with the Noorda Theatre Center for Children and Youth to present a musical to local middle schools that engaged young adolescents in a theatrical experience that addressees their needs and concerns.
UVU-Legacy Bilingual Math Mentoring
GEL 420
Project Lead: Jane Loftus
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: This project involved bilingual math mentoring at a high school for young mothers using a bilingual computer program (ALEKS). The project helped to develop a long term partnership between UVU and Legacy High School which enables disadvantaged students to have a higher chance of graduating high school and advancing to college.
Breast Cancer Detection
GEL 421
Project Lead: Timothy E. Doyle
Amount: $9,361.00
Description: In collaboration with the Huntsman Cancer Institute, UVU physics students participated in the development of a method to detect breast cancer during surgery to ensure all of the cancer has been removed. The impact of this project will be the continued development of a new diagnostic instrument to provide the surgeon with instant pathology results. This will improve the accuracy and precision of lumpectomies and other surgical procedures, thus improving patient quality of life and prognosis.
Service Learning Geophysics
GEL 422
Project Lead: Steven H. Emerman
Amount: $5,000.00
Description:This project helped to carry out effective service-learning projects in exploration geophysics on behalf of small mining companies and landowners in the depressed East Tintic Mining District of central Utah.
Fall 2011
Sand Filtration (Mexico)
GEL 392
Project Lead: Joel Bradford
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: This is a student lead project where students will develop a system of slow sand filtration for use in the developing world. Research will be conducted on campus and students will field test the system in village of Central Mexico.
UVU-Mali Nursing
GEL 393
Project Lead: Steven Emerman
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: Students promoted service learning at the University of Bamako, Mali through a collaborative project in which they studied elevated groundwater arsenic and its health effects in the high-poverty neighborhoods of Bamako and the rural villages of Ouelessebougou.
Insect Field Guide
GEL 394
Project Lead: Heath Ogden
Amount: $2,500.00
Description: The purpose of this research at the Capitol Reef Field Station is to provide students with excellent field and lab experience.
Recycling Provo
GEL 395
Project Lead: Michael Stevens
Amount: $3,558.00
Description: After learning about the benefits of recycling in Biology 1010, UVU students were given the option to go door-to-door in Provo to apply what they have learned by encouraging Provo residents to sign-up for the city's curb-side recycling program. Students then tested the effectiveness of this type of intervention.
Healthy Vending Machine Choices
GEL 396
Project Lead: Mary V. Brown
Amount: $1,015.00
Description: This research analyzed the food choices available in vending machines at UVU and also helped seek to improve healthy choices via educational and environmental interventions.
Tutoring Minorities
GEL 397
Project Lead: Heidi Ryan
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: UVU students provided free tutoring for low income/minority K-12 students. Students, with the help of this service, will complete their weekly assignments and improve grades in subjects tutored. The long term impact to this community and individuals participating in the program will be able to decrease dropout rates as students learn and understand their academic potential.
Sexing of Human Remains Using Teeth
GEL 398
Project Lead: Haagen Klaus
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: The sexing of juvenile skeletons is a major goal of physical and forensic anthropology. Often forensic and anthropological adult skeletons are incomplete and cannot be sexed. Determination of the sex of otherwise unidentified human remains will increase the useful forensic information from a crime scene and expand the possible analysis and interpretation of anthropological contexts. Students conducted a biometric analysis of the teeth and assisted in the proteomic analysis.
Strengthening Families
GEL 399
Project Lead: Grant Richards
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: UVU students collaborated with local schools to conduct programs for their at-risk families which are proven to be effective in increasing resilience and reducing risk factors for behavioral, emotional, academic and social problems in youth while improving family relationships and parenting skills.
Capitol Reef HX
GEL 400
Project Lead: Linda Shelton
Amount: $3,000.00
Description: English students can apply their editing skills to transcribe oral histories and also provide service to 1) the community members surrounding the UVU Capitol Reef Field Station who will receive copies of their histories and 2) the UVU Library Archives that will house these transcripts for future researchers.
Multi-Disciplinary Simulation Center
GEL 401
Project Lead: Abraham Teng
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: This project developed a simulation center to bring together students from multiple disciplines to collaborate on applied projects. The project helped improve student success by giving them an opportunity to be involved in the design and development of a highly technical center while it is being used by patrons. It also helped to bring in teams from local companies to create more visibility for UVU and have UVU students interact with local professionals in their own professional capacity.
Ballroom Dance Nationals
GEL 402
Project Lead: Chris Witt
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: In November 2011 the UVU Ballroom Dance Co. Gold Team traveled to Columbus, OH to compete in the National Collegiate Championships, defending the title that they earned in 2010. Following the championships, the team performed for local elementary school students and for community members in the UVU Ballroom Dance Concert.
Spring 2011
Airway Management Equipment
GEL 381
Project Lead: Chris Lindquist
Amount: $7,470.00
Description: Paramedic students utilized airway management equipment to become proficient in the intubation skill, which helped to improve clinical outcomes and engaged emergency service providers by having UVU students teach the intubation skill to partnering agencies.
Beit Lehi, Israel Survey
GEL 382
Project Lead: Dan Perry
Amount: $2,600.00
Description: Beit Lehi, Israel is an archeological dig wherein UVU students are heavily engaged in surveying, mapping, and digitally documenting of the ancient facilities resulting in the design and construction of a visitor center and accompanying infrastructure as well as multi-media presentations.
Unbound
GEL 383
Project Lead: Doris Trujillo
Amount: $8,000.00
Description: Unbound is a collaborative research project that explores dance as a vehicle to create sustainable relationships between people of diverse cultures. The purpose of the project is to explore dance as a vehicle for change. Students from UVU and Spain worked side by side with faculty mentors in the creation of a new original work based on their increase understanding of the fusion of two cultures.
Three Rare Endemics
GEL 384
Project Lead: Ally Searle
Amount: $5,140.00
Description: With increasing threats, such as urban expansion, off-road vehicle use, and grazing, three endangered species, the Dwarf bear poppy, Holmgren milkvetch, and Shivwits milkvetch are being seriously impacted. The primary goal of this project was to determine population densities, associated species, and habitat characteristics, which will be used to inform land manager making management decisions, as well as to inform the public about the unique flora in their own backyards.
Chemi Var Dental Drill
GEL 385
Project Lead: Daren Heaton
Amount: $3,250.00
Description: This project determined the effect that various conditions have on clogging related to an abrasive water jet. With money provided by GEL, we investigated chemical variables associated with clogging of a dental water jet drill being developed by a local company, H20 TECH in conjunction with the engineering firm, Espiritu Design.
High resolution Microscope
GEL 386
Project Lead: Jim Harris
Amount: $4,100.00
Description: A high magnification high resolution objective was used to obtain publishable images from student research. The high quality 63X objective on the DMI 3000B inverted florescent microscope enabled three student-drive projects: 1. measurements of ploidy in local Western USA plants, which is difficult using conventional objectives. 2. histological analysis of dopaminergic pathways, and 3. localization of glycogen and glycogen-specific proteins in renal cancer and liver cells. 4. Identification of plant pathogens that affect Pinus longaeva and analyzing their mode of action.
Mo Le Fanau
GEL 387
Project Lead: Troy Nelson
Amount: $10,000.00
Description: The rheumatic program in Samoa is a coordinated effort of indigenous and U.S. educators, medical clinicians, and government officials to confront the relatively high and costly incidence rate of rheumatic-related heart disease, bringing the incidence rate to a more manageable and affordable level. A central asset in our health service project is a container of medical and educational supplies that will aid in alleviating the lingering effects from thee devastating tsunami of 2009 fostering relations, allowing effective engagement and education.
UVU/CUNORI Student, Faculty, Physicians Exchange
GEL 388
Project Lead: Mark Bracken
Amount: $5,000.00
Description: An international exchange of medical students and faculty from Centro Universitario del Oriente (CUNORI) School of Medicine with UVU pre-medical students, faculty, and local physicians that focuses on experiencing the practice of medicine in Guatemala and the United States.
Grassroots Shakespeare
GEL 389
Project Lead: Kate McPherson
Amount: $9,650.00
Description: Grassroots Shakespeare Co formed and staffed by UVU students and faculty, provides 'original practices' theater to produce vibrant, fast-paced, free performances and collaborative learning workshops for the community to foster a greater understanding of and appreciation for the theatrical practices of Shakespeare's era.