Natural Sciences Faculty Panel

Alright, well welcome everyone. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. I don't know where you were joining in front, but it's actually a very lovely day in Meadville today. So if it's a gorgeous day where you are, thank you very much for taking time to join with us and join our esteemed faculty. Members were very grateful that they are here to join you so.

We're going to wait a few minutes to get started, but in the mean time I would.

Love for you to all kind of type in where you're coming from. So we informed our faculty members that we have a pretty pretty high number of participants coming, so if you'd like to share where you're tuning in from, please do so.

So as you notice, you see the chat box down there when you. If you have questions, please feel free to type those in. We do have a moderate are assisting us today, so Amanda Carroll, who is from the office of admissions, will be assisting us so lovely. Create to see where you're coming from.

We love to see the breath of diversity here. So one thing with the questions when you type those in, you will not actually see the questions pop up. That's why we do have the moderate are just to assist us with the flow of questions. It's the. On another note, if you do come in and you are experiencing any audio issues, any technical issues just simply either refresh your browser or log out and then log back in. So good I see see some familiar names there, so that's wonderful.

Uhm, I guess we can get started. We have a good number of who have joined again. My name is Chris Seager. I'm a senior systems director of admissions and coordinator of international recruitment. But you're not here to here from Maine. You always here for admission. So we would love to have our faculty members introduce themselves. So if you would get started with the nerve nesci if you would like to tell us, share with us your name where you're from, what Department you're with, and what classes.

You teach.

Yep, sounds good. Hi, my name is Matt, an ASCII. I am originally from Yuri Pennsylvania moved around quite a bit. We live in most recently before we moved back to Pennsylvania we lived in Tampa, FL so I saw someone from Central Florida who checked in. We missed the weather down there in the winter, that's for sure. How many cologist in the Department of biology at Allegany College? I teach quite a few courses in our intro sequence and then I also offer up.

Division courses in infectious disease ecology and course in physiological ecology.

And Yeah.

Hi, my name is Julie.

I wasn't sure if I needed an introduction, but uhm so I am, uh, I teach in the Department of computer science. Uh, and the chair of the Department currently, and I'm also affiliated Michael Fevers are relatively new integrative informatics program. By training, I'm a roboticist and a lot of my research is around the field of artificial intelligence.

Uhm, I teach those courses and robotics and AI in our Department. But I also teach courses that range from introductory courses to some of our advanced courses.

Hi, I'm professor Garcia.

I I am the chair of biochemistry. I'm also a member of the Chemistry Department. I am an enzyme ologist, so I study how enzymes work. What regulates them, how we can change them?

The classes that I teach are a kind of spans. The gamut. I teach the fresh the first year seminar courses. I teach the intro series of Gen Chem. I also teach biochemistry and several advanced biochemistry courses such as drug metabolism.

Chemical metabolism in clinical biochemistry.

OK great so thank you for thank you all for joining us in the mean time feel free to begin submitting questions manual assist with moderating us moderating those and maybe just a simple question to get you all started what do you enjoy most about being a professor at Allegany college and having the chance to work with the students that you do.

Oh

Go for it. Either you're smiling.

OK, um I've taught at several institutions and I have to say that Allegany is unique in that.

When we say you have an opportunity to interact with your faculty members, that's 100% true. It's my corner of the building is like a little family. That's what I like most about alleghenys. I get to know the students one on one at a deeper level, and that actually makes the class is even more interesting. And doing a research a lot more fun. So I have to say it's the student faculty relationships that can be developed.

On campus.

I.

To train off of on what TV was one of the things that that I like that related to, that is to watch students interests grow as as they kind of pursue their own academic interests. And you might have a student in Class A sophomore year, and then by the time you see them, their senior year, you've kind of watched watch them grow over these three.

Years of taking different courses, refining the way that they are thinking about things, and then you get the celebrate with them. That final semester is they finished their senior comprehensive research and it's a It's a really powerful experience for students and also for faculty.

I agree with my colleagues. I think one of the uhm, I think most rewarding experiences, other students interactions and the work with do with student. I think one thing that for me set Allegany apart from other some institutions is our ability to innovate. There are numerous projects that we have worked with with students without alarm make.

That have actually become a part of Allegany, a part of my curriculum.

Part of our research, part of our community outreach, so it's really wonderful to see the work that our students do with faculty and have it actually be applied and become a part of of something alive.

I said You You touched upon a lot of wonderful things. There almonds topics that we could easily go into depth on, so I guess maybe going into something you mentioned, like the interactive environment and the relationships that faculty members have with the students. Could you kind of give some examples that you have? I mean, a lot of times we think about the clouds, but could you talk more about maybe the relation of Savage relationships that you have? Maybe work in the laboratories or outside of class, for example with advising? Or maybe if you travel to conferences or additional.

Research that you might have done over the summer, and I guess we can proceed in the kind of following the same order if we like to go doctor an SD doctor. June did know and then Doctor Garcia.

Yep.

Right, yeah, so I just actually retweeted this from my my lab Twitter account to the Allegany Twitter account, and it's a fun story. I had a student who graduated in class of 2016.

And he first had his name is Logan. Bella first time as a sophomore in an intro level course in our second course in the bio sequence, it's called bio 221, and at the time he had he had very, very strict goals for professional goals. You wanted to come to alleghanian do this. And then I watched him over those couple years. Grow and kind of shape the way that he thought about things. You recently finished a Masters degree from Purdue and Wildlife Ecology, and he's going to Yale to start a PhD.

Yep.

On in infectious disease ecology was one of my senior comp students and it just. It's a really, really gratifying experience through to watch someone grasp hold of something that they didn't even really know that they wanted to do with their life. You watch them kind of go through all these decisions that they have to make and they finally come that grips. But this is what I want to do. You want them to do that and then you know it seems like yesterday he just graduated from alleghanian these now starting a PhD at.

Yeah, well, it's it's. It's really neat to see those sort of experiences and being at a smaller school like Allegheny. Yeah, it's a very personal story that I have with Logan. I still see him. I talk to him on a regular basis. So sort of relationships. Their lasting and there are important.

And I think another sort of benefits that we have because we are able to build a strong relationships with students. They continue as Professor Beneski said, after students graduate from Allegany, we have several courses, for example, where Allegany alarms graduated from our program actually engaging our horses.

And provide that industry feedback to students for working on projects in those forces would have a really a wonderful sort of pipeline off alarm for higher our students for internships and jobs.

I think one thing that's at the forefront of my mind right now. Senior project, some has probably all of you know.

Anyone that that like you need it is required to complete the senior project, so it's sort of a mini dissertation of swords and our seniors have just finished going through that process and I think hearing from them and hearing from students in the past will have graduated and have gone through that process. That is sort of a life enhancing process for a lot of students.

SS in itself because then they have something concrete that they can demonstrate. The sort of educational outcomes in this world project, and a lot of our students have talked about how they were able to use this project.

A benefit them in an interview sent job application. Some things like that.

TV.

OK OK yeah. It looks like we did. Uh well hopefully hopefully she should be back in a second and then she'll rejoin us, but you would both touched up on research that students are doing in. I think obviously that gives students a really a wonderful chance to work really closely with you. Could you both provide maybe some examples of research that students do? Obviously we had the question come through about what research you biology students do, but can you give us some examples of that? But then also some examples of interdisciplinary.

Research that students have done given the major minor requirement across the divisions.

Yeah, so I can start off with, uh, I'm stuff about bio students and all kind of focus on that. And then maybe some of my colleagues could chat about some of interdisciplinary stuff in biology faculty in our Department have specialties that range from cellular biology, studying cancer in the East and using yeast as a model system to understand how cancer works all the way up to physiologists who try to ask questions about.

On organ systems in an organisms, reproductive Physiology, respiratory Physiology and then all the way to faculty such as myself, who are faculty that do research outside in ecosystems and environments.

So depending on what the student interests are, students pair up with faculty members and they can conduct research across all the major subdisciplines of biology. My particular research group, we study infectious diseases, a wildlife, and just within my particular group I have students that focus more on the pathogen, so they'll conduct pretty much laboratory type projects were there in the lab all the time, growing.

The passenger in culture doing sort of manipulations in the lab. I've got students who are interested in physiological responses of organisms when they get infected with a pathogen, and then I have prudents who try to track the distribution of the pathogen or infected organisms out in the field, and their research is almost exclusively field based.

And that's probably a snapshot of most faculty and our Department where students have some sort of an interest that connects them to that research. But then our research group is very, very multidisciplinary in terms of the individualized approach is that they take to studying whatever flavor biology they study.

I'm in Mount Department and this is the same for the integrative informatix program. We allow students to select their own project so their projects are not driven by the interests of the faculty necessarily, but by the interests of the students and in computer science. For example, next year about 1/3 of all of our students.

Who are seniors will be completing a double pump and design A senior projects that will satisfy the requirements of two majors and students who choose to double major and typically tend to do that.

So for example, we have some have had a couple of students who double major in computer science and biology and they do research an by Informatics which allowed you. Essentially it's an introduce laneri feel that uses software tools from the standard biological data for like drug drug discovery. So gene predictions and so on. We have other students.

Who do interested when every work? Um, for example, the sum just this week we have two students who completed their senior project. So who will double majoring in music and computer science? So for they have comps may develop. Both of them develop two different software tools for.

The purpose off for musical purposes one was related to doing musical transpositions so that the performance can use this tool. Is there performing and the other one was more for like a typical users to learn how to create music without having a along sort of technical music theory knowledge. So I think the introduce Promotory projects vary a lot.

Um, in my field of all of the senior project.

Until was creating a some sort of software tool for some specific application.

Those are those are wonderful examples. I'm kind of going along the lines of research. I know we had a question coming, but I'll go back to that after. But kind of keeping things along the lines of kind of research, internships, experiential learning opportunities. Can you provide any examples of how maybe students have gotten involved doing research or internships in the local community? So just kind of outside of Alleghenys Campus. Dr Beneski. If we can start with you in.

Please share.

Janella review either either one you to want to start off with this one just so I don't. I don't know. We start.

Alright, now after I'm so.

Portal.

I'm at work.

I know it's fast. You don't say, aware, but would you have a pretty robust summer research program at Allegany where would typically have a you know 100 students will stay on campus and do research with faculty, uhm?

In the past I have worked with students on some of my research projects and those got published and we've gone to conferences to present those projects. As far as the community goes, some of the projects that I work on our community oriented so they might have some.

Uh, issue that, or a problem that they want to resolve using a technology and then we developed that technology for them. So for example, I've had a group of students a couple years ago develop a web platform for our local farmers to be able to sell their produce and meats in the community because before they weren't able to.

Do it through the online interface. Would you have also a connection with multiple local companies in the community as you know, may know a meatball is a big house? Uh, uh.

So we have a local local hospital that employs a lot of students and faculty do a lot of research within the hospital setting. We also have to the other sort of side of the industry in the Meadville Community. An hour 2 and I sort of industry spinoffs would have several companies like accurate act that produce manifold do manufacturing for Air and Space.

Industry and they employ a lot of our students. Would have several graduates working for their software development spinoff company where they're developing software for manufacturing.

They also have set up a program, especially frolicking students with a local marketing firm called Bull Moose marketing. Uh, where they created a subsidiary of their company that employs Allegany students, and these students are van that subsidiary called aim.

Yeah, which is stands for Allegany inbound marketing. Uh, we love acronyms at Allegany so that one of them, but uh, in aim, uh, students are able to work on marketing related projects for local businesses and their targets. Businesses are nonprofits and small businesses. And it's and introduce a primary group. So we have computer scientists working there doing.

Uh, they don't know analysis doing web development after all of month will have art students creating a log loss and marketing platform. So have economic students working on business plans for companies and so on. So that sort of was just an example of one of the other avenues for students to find internships. But then they can also be hired to work in that.

Company as contractors. After they complete I want some extra internship.

So I think those are my examples. I don't know if matter if you. If you had any other examples.

Yeah, I'm not going to add anything specific other than the very very similar experiences exist in biology as well, and the folks are interested in in those, I'd be more than happy to kind of chat off offline with folks if you want to. I'm sure you get my contact information later, but it's a very similar story.

In biology, as as in chemistry and bio informatics and Computer Sciences.

Great and I want to make sure we get back to one of the questions before and I know we've been talking a lot about research internships. Some of the major things that students have to look forward to, but there's a question earlier about the size of introductory classes. Can you talk a bit about how students get their? You know what are they starting off? What is maybe that first year look like? Are they just kind of coming into into a lecture Hall or they kind of coming into smaller classes? And maybe what kind of hands on experience can they look forward to?

Now, as first year students before they get into everything else at Allegheny has to offer doctor Garcia. Would you like to start?

I think I'll class us our introductory courses range from 25 to 40 ish. I think that that's a typical camp up again more a larger courses. Uh oh, I'm in a more advanced courses after introductory courses do get smaller than that, but I mean, even in the courses was 40 students.

Uh, we don't typically lecture. Uh, we might give some introductory comments for a few minutes introducing a new concept. Otherwise, most of our courses, especially the introductory level at, taught us through a hands-on instruction instruction, each a computer science course has a lab associated with it, so students are able to do our up different software applications using the concepts that they learn that week.

Um, to help you, don't some navigate these hands on activities. We employ about 25 or so of our upper level students. So in each class you might have 10 to 20 upper level students who serve as technical leaders and they are there to help us find errors in your programs or answer questions and things like that.

In Biology, the first time that you'll take an intro course in our program is going to be your sophomore year or your second year at Allegany. The two intro courses that we have that are larger courses, the tags or bio 220 and bio 221. I'm currently teaching a round of 221 that semester and I have 52 students enrolled in and that's that's a really large class normally worth about 40 to 45.

For capsize with that, and In addition to that time that spent in the larger lecture whole we meet once a week for an hour and a half, and smaller recitation group size is usually 12 to 15 students for an hour and a half.

And that's a kind of a specialized time where we do group problem solving and work through some of the more challenging concepts in the class. So we even though we're about 4550 students, three times a week for lecture, you get double that amount of time every week in a smaller group of about 1212 facts, or 12 students per faculty.

Name?

Absolutely.

Yeah, for my intro course, so right so picture 52 students in the class in the classroom. The first thing that students do is they come down to the front of the class negative worksheet and within the 50 minute period there is a blend of lecturing and small group work that will happen where we kind of these breakout groups. That kind of happened around themes that I have this worksheet built built around. So yeah, it's a very common thing and I would imagine that.

Based on what general was saying in computer science and stuff like that, it's it's a very hands-on approach in lecture and the long the line between what you do in a lecture at Allegany's is really blurred. It's not. It's not. Anyway, a passive engagement of the material.

Great thank you. A man got kind of tying into the question that was just put through our what are what are the in class labs like if you want to kind of share a bit about some maybe some of the labs or maybe some of the facilities that students have access to. I know I'm sure you enjoy speaking about this so maybe doctor Jim it starts off.

I can start I mean because I'm in computer science.

Oh, wow, labs are quite different than the other scientists are because we just need a computer basically, but we do have to our apps in in computer science consist of us giving students need projects and working with them as they complete these projects. So for example, we might in the introductory course ask students to.

Uh, right to develop software that creates, um, some some art like they they have to write a program that creates a painting, for example, and they do that using the concepts that they've learned in the course. Their lab instruction sheet provides a lot of details, and then the instructor and the technical leaders.

Working with students during the lab session as they complete each step off of that project, they are some courses where we also work with hardware. Uh, we might ask students to work with a specific type of hardware and we do have a relatively new lamp which is an acronym for you is called Alec Allegany lamp.

For innovation and creativity.

I'll pop anyway, yeah?

So this lab just opened up this fall or this passport and it, uhm, consists of two different spaces. One is a teaching space which has basically computer lab with writing desks, Anna teaching station, and the other side is a maker space. So we have things like CNC machines and 3D printers and a lot of their robotics equipment is stored there. So if we need to do something hands-on.

Um, we might move into that part of the lamp. So when I'm teaching, for example, in the UM AI Core, students with developing some examples using a hardware components and using like electronic, different electronic components, whether it was like a little toy cars that were autonomous or a water checking electronics.

I think some so we were able to utilize that lab space for that.

This is probably going to be pretty similar for for EV, but she could put her spin on it too. Even I share a same building, run different wings of the of the same building, so one of the things that blows me away about Alleghenys the infrastructure that we have in the Sciences is. It's unbelievable. The amount of equipment that we have and not only the equipment that we have but the student access to equipment is something that's really, really important to understand that not only do we have the same equipment that larger universities have.

But the fact that our enrollment in our class sizes are so small, students use that equipment as sophomores as juniors and the seniors, and that's something that that is not very common. When you go to other other institutions. For the most part, every teaching class has dedicated laboratory space for it and biology and that can range from a molecular biology lab to a microbiology lab or a small blended lab like the ones that teach in where we do some prep work.

And then usually head out in the field and do a lot of our work outside in the field. So I consider all the aquatic habitats and forests that we have in driving distance with in Meadville, kind of as an extension of the laboratory facilities that we have. In addition to that faculty of their own research space. and I know in biology a lot of times that faculty get students integrated into research within the classroom, so you know there's a theme, Lebanon.

That's saying a few times it is Blurred Lines. We get students using equipment in our own research labs that are part of classes that they take. So it's really, really well equipped.

EV.

Great, so going to come back to one question. I know we had kind of touched upon this briefly before but I would love to have you. I guess the question is, are there any research projects that are joint between two separate fields? Whether it be both Sciences or for example, business, economics and science, and anything that jump to see janella doctor device I had bad there.

No, it's not.

An example of a ban dramatics of interaction of biology and computer science. Also couple of years ago I had a student who worked on a project between neuroscience in computer science. So he developed an automated robotic arm that could do some of the wet lab stuff that they do and the neuroscience. So instead of like a person sitting then putting stuff and solutions and waiting.

This arm does that, um, for business and economics. I think in computer science about a 70 to 80% of our students who major in computer science minor in economics. So a lot of their projects that they choose to do for that. Either course projects that are open ended or their senior seasons project tends to be like in an intersection. So a lot of data analysis type of projects that we see.

Uhm, I am working right now in a project with a marketing professor in the Department of Economics where we're looking at using a robot, an UM in the store and the retail setting up and I will have a group of students for helping us with that project as well.

Yeah, they had a few more to the list, some similar experiences in biology. I had a student little while ago who was a double major in the comp project related to biology and art and he did some scientific illustration and then we've got a lot of collaborators and biology that do work with our global health program as well, so there's a lot of interdisciplinary work that's done from that angle as well. So I think that you know.

If you take a step back and think of the collaboration that we just talked about, there's science, science collaborations, biology and chemistry, their stuff with Sciences and some of the Humanities, Biology and art, their stuff between science is an businesslike, Janelle was talking about stuff like that, so really anything you could think of, faculty get excited about a lot of things. So so it's pretty easy to get us excited about the project.

Look

Why?

Am I agree completely with Doctor Garcia? I think for me initially it was, uhm, alleghanies reputation, an undergraduate research and the close knit community that I observed when I was interviewing here. Um, since I started working here, I think what keeps me here.

Yes, uh.

Allegany's commitment to their faculty as well. Um, an being able to accomplish various projects. So like I tend to get some crazy. I sent a work with other faculty on accomplishing some of those ideas. Then, and, uh, we are able to do that and then work with some students on different projects. And the college is very supportive of that work where.

Maybe another more here.

Your translate would've been harder to push. I'm such an innovative idea, so project, and I think the probably most important thing that is still keeping me here the students. So I think it's it's.

It's hard to talk about it without tearing up at at this point in time, especially because we are not able to see a students. But um, interactions with students and being able to teach in in the manner that will teach Anna with the sort of close knit some teaching environment. Then I agree with doctor Garcia that the students here and I thought that other institutions before, but.

The White the learning environment is is very different, because, um, when you're teaching to a group of people actually want to learn, and I want to do anymore than you initial setup to teach. It's it's just a very rewarding experience.

I was sitting on the beach in Tampa FL and I said, You know what I'm. I'm sick of this son. I really missed 100 inches of snow that that meeting with every winter and I decided that that's that's really what was missing in my life. I'm not.

SEPTA train off of you know every I agree with both my colleagues 100% and I'll just add kind of one of my favorite personal anecdotes is is the way that our curriculum is designed. It empower students that do two things, and I think there are very important things. Number one is to think about problems in the world outside of your major, and that's a very, very powerful learning tool that that students get to apply everywhere. And by teaching students how to do that.

I remind myself to do that, and that's very powerful, as as a faculty member to be able to do that. So I I really like that from the program, and I knew that right away about our program. Alleghanian and I knew that that's something that I was going to do, appreciate and continue to appreciate. And then the second thing is, within each program, whether it be biology, chemistry, computer science, is the way that our courses are. Scaffold did so that we would blend student experiences from first year programming all the way up there.

Final year's seniors and that road is a very well thought out road that we've done and it's an effective way to do an education that I bought into it immediately when I came in Allegany. The interview. So those would be my two additions to the similar stories that my team colleagues so.

OK, wonderful thank you. Thank you everyone so much for sharing that and 1st off. I'd like to thank our faculty members for joining us. We really appreciate it. We're really grateful and knowing that we can kind of trust you with the students that were working with that, they're going to be taking care of that. You're going to give them opportunities that you're going to help them kind of find their place here and Beyond, and then thank you as well to all the students who have tuned in. So whether you've chosen Allegany or you're considering Allegany just, I hope you know what you have.

Uh, what you can anticipate here at the college on the the academic opportunities, opportunities for research, internships, everything is very equal. Access your round faculty members who are incredibly passionate about what they do and they want to share those opportunities with you. So again, thank you everyone, thank you are wonderful. Moderate are as well and we hope to see you here in the fall as well. So please reach out if you have any questions. Admissions, allegany.edu I will share my email address.

As well, if you do have any questions, concerns, comments so again, thank you very much.

Thanks.