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Part 1 & Part 2 |
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"Life-changing." "The defining point of all four years of college." "Incredible." That's what those who have received grants and those who have awarded the grants say about SAAB. "It's where education happens in the best sense of the word," says Klaus Engelhardt, professor of French and SAAB's faculty adviser since 1992. "I believe in the benefits of this program and its excellence," he says. "Students develop projects of their own, which are academically sound. And they are financed by the student body." Since 1983, SAAB has awarded nearly $500,000 to almost 500 student-initiated projects. SAAB funds independent research, attendance at professional conferences, visits by scholars, performances and tutoring. Awards vary from a few hundred to several thousand dollars and may include overseas travel. SAAB is a program believed to be unique to Lewis & Clark. When Phi Beta Kappa reviewers visited the college, they met with SAAB "and were impressed," recalls Shelby Uritz '96, who chaired SAAB for two years. "It's hard for people to believe that students administer this board and that students fund students to do independent research projects," Uritz says. "I continue to be impressed by SAAB's individual and collective leadership, and by the sense of purpose, the seriousness and the maturity of its members," says Engelhardt. This year's grants include $1,370 to four biology students to study geckos in Australia, their native habitat. The research may prove what has been observed in the laboratory: in terms of fuel economy, geckos are the Volkswagen Beetles of the lizard family, and it is their efficient metabolism that allows them to walk around at night when it's cold. The question remains: "How fast do they actually move around at night in nature?" For Ryan Baxter, Jennifer Curkendall, Alexandra Folias and Zoe Ward, it's the opportunity of a lifetime. "They can generate potentially publishable research," Kellar Autumn, assistant professor of biology, says. "They worked really hard to get ready for this," he adds. "There's such incredible excitement. I'm holding my breath to see what they come up with." With $1,745 in SAAB backing, Heather Goldblatt will travel to Havana, Cuba, in late March to study urban agriculture. "Agriculture has been one of the largest components of sustainable development," Goldblatt says. Her research will become a major part of her senior thesis on sustainability. Proficient in Spanish, she plans to talk with Cubans in the urban gardens that the government set up as part of its self-sufficiency movement. Cuba created organic gardens seven or eight years ago in response to the trade embargo and the end of Soviet assistance, Goldblatt explains. Katie Thomas, a junior in German and economics, leaves in May for Munich to study the Jugendstil art movement of 1895-1910. The art noveau movement was "really one of the first times politics played such a key role in what's called high art," explains Thomas, who has been studying German for seven years. Thomas will have access to the archives of the University of Munich, art historians, galleries and important sites. The $1,440 SAAB grant "has given me an opportunity to conduct research that will be the capstone of all my years of study," she says. Like almost 60 other science students SAAB has funded, Adam Johnston '94 had the opportunity to do independent research. "The whole project on the convection patterns of movements of fluids was very new to me." Johnston's work became the basis for his senior thesis. He presented it at a SAAB meeting and during a weekend for Lewis & Clark visitors. "I vividly remember the other students who had SAAB grants. They did work in South Africa and Central America. It was very diverse, very academic. It made me proud to be part of that community." After completing graduate school at the University of Utah in 1997, Johnston is beginning his dissertation in education and teaching at Weber State University. One of the few who received two research grants, Kimberly Gannett '94 says, "Those grants are absolutely incredible. They force you to do things differently." Gannett did sociology/anthropology studies in Chile and Guatemala. Upon arriving in Guatemala, her first lesson was in flexibility. The doctor she intended to work with was in exile. Instead, Gannett lived with a midwife. The two often awakened to a knock on the door hours before dawn, strapped the midwife's children to their backs and walked two or three hours into the mountains to assist at a birth. Did SAAB make a difference in Gannett's life? "I studied birthing while living in a Spanish-speaking country," she says, "and here I am, working as a doula and teaching Spanish to high school and junior high students." As a doula, Gannett provides prenatal education, support during birth and postnatal nutrition education in Boulder, Colo. SAAB also sent students to professional conferences. Originally, Tina Tominc Saxowsky '96 thought she would major in mathematics and economics. Through SAAB, she attended her first major science conference. The grant "pushed me into independent research and cemented what I wanted to do. SAAB allowed me to take what I learned the previous summer and apply it on a new project," Saxowsky says. A graduate student at Johns Hopkins Medical School in an interdisciplinary studies program, she is in her third year of independent research in the combined fields of bio-chemistry, cellular and molecular biology. Independent research "gets the wheels in back of your head moving," she says. "It's the thing that drew me into a science career." Following two terms of study in Micronesia, Claudia Johnson '85 received funds to do research on the hawksbill sea turtle for the annual meeting of the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species. "My experiences at Lewis & Clark taught me how to learn, how to discern, how to articulate," she says. Johnson intended to continue working with the hawksbill but when diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease six weeks before graduation, she returned home to Chicago. During treatment, she began working part time for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Her health improved, and she spent seven years managing the water division's Indian program for 33 tribes in the Great Lakes region. Recently, she was |
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