This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This award supports a renovation project to provide infrastructure improvements to student/faculty research spaces in synthetic chemistry, psychology, and psychobiology, at Centre College of Kentucky. The renovation will be located in Young Hall, a 56,000-square-foot building housing the biology, biochemistry and molecular biology, psychology, psychobiology, and synthetic chemistry programs. The renovation will consist of 3,983 square feet of research space: a lab for the synthetic chemistry program, eight labs for psychology and psychobiology, and a suite of six student research spaces. This proposal is part of a larger initiative at Centre to increase dedicated research space and to enhance faculty research in scientific disciplines, as evidenced by the construction (now underway) of a 40,000-square-foot addition to Young Hall that will include both teaching and research spaces. The space to be renovated by this award was constructed in 1970. The proposed renovations consist of fume hoods, cabinetry, shelving, doors, and other items, and will bring the older areas up to modern research standards.
The renovation will support collaborative student/faculty research on the reduction of pollutants via the use of benign solvents, research on attentional disorders and corrective techniques, and research on pre-trial jury bias and change-of-venue petitions. Centre College's students come from a variety of economic backgrounds, and the institution has a growing number of students from underrepresented ethnic groups. The facility will improve research opportunities for undergraduate students.
In 2010 the National Science Foundation made an award to Centre College to renovate fifteen student and faculty collaborative research spaces in the campus’s science building. The spaces targeted for renovation were originally designed as wet labs for biology and chemistry. However, the behavioral neuroscience and psychology programs have since inherited these rooms that are ill-suited for the human subject research conducted by these programs. In addition, a former chemistry teaching lab which had been used for student/faculty research was converted into a modern collaborative research laboratory. Eight psychology professors and their research students use six of the renovated spaces to hold one-on-one data collection interviews, conduct small group studies, and perform data analysis. For example, a senior faculty member whose interests include courtroom psychology has mentored six students in designing and developing studies that consider the impact of the words, gestures, and inflections used by judges when giving instructions to potential jurors. The professor and her students reviewed courtroom procedures, conducted a phone survey to gauge responses to subtle differences in questions, and hosted focus groups. She and her students intend to develop a non-biased script for judges to use when instructing juries, as well as to inform attorneys about how to phrase their inquiries better so as to identify true bias in a potential juror, instead of unintentionally implanting bias by using poorly phrased questions. The professor has presented her work at regional meetings and at a meeting of the Kentucky Bar Association. One of the large chemistry preparation rooms was reconfigured to become two electromagnetically shielded rooms which are used by members of the behavioral neuroscience program. These rooms block electronic interference, thus maximizing the capacity of EEG equipment to take brainwave readings free of "noise." Additionally, the rooms are equipped with dimmable lighting and video cameras that help to control research conditions. Also available is a utility sink that is appropriate for cleaning the EEG caps and other testing equipment. Designed for one-on-one testing, these rooms can accommodate four to six student collaborators of the behavioral neuroscience program each academic term. Centre’s athletics programs has partnered with a behavioral neuroscience professor to attain baseline data for all members of the football and women’s soccer teams. Should any of these student-athletes suffer a concussion during their athletic season, the individual will be asked to complete the assessment again, allowing researchers to learn how the brain changes its operational procedure when concussed. The research team is working with the college’s athletic department to stress to coaches and student-athletes the importance of properly using safety equipment and the need to make decisions based on the short- and long-term health of the student. This professor has supervised nine students in this and other research opportunities. Preliminary data from these studies have been presented at regional meetings and campus research symposium. Also with funds from this NSF grant, six former biology wet labs were converted for use by human-studies disciplines. Unneeded cabinetry, ventilation hoods, and sinks were removed, and walls were removed to create three larger areas that can support collaborative work and multiple test subjects. These rooms now better accommodate the research methodologies used by psychology and behavioral neuroscience. In the past year, at least twenty-eight students have used these rooms for testing and data analysis. In addition to the creation of the human subject testing areas, the NSF award allowed for an outdated teaching lab, which had been used for collaborative research, to be transformed into a modern research space for synthetic chemistry. New and efficient fume hoods are now installed, and two central workbenches allow easy access to instruments. In addition, the lab now has new features such as cabinets containing vented corrosive storage and vented flammable storage, an ADA-approved workbench, and energy-efficient fume hoods. This lab has become representative of the emphasis that Centre places on student and faculty research. This lab is often shown to prospective students and their parents to demonstrate the difference between a teaching lab and a research lab. Visual evidence of this distinction has sparked discussions about opportunities for students to participate in undergraduate research and the nature and role of scientific research at the undergraduate institution. Two chemistry professors currently use this lab, and at least five student researchers have used the space in the past year. The research highlighted in our NSF proposal belongs to a senior faculty member who is studying Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs), or materials consisting of metal ions linked by organic molecules. These materials have potential uses in hydrogen storage and catalysis.
