21st Annual Celebration of Scholarship Symposium (2022)
Greetings
This year, we received submissions from presenters from diverse colleges, and we are glad that you have opted to attend the symposium. We hope that this year’s symposium will be yet another intellectually stimulating event.
The abstracts cover a wide range of methodological approaches. Some presenters are passionate about education and mental health, while others are passionate about genetic disorders.
We hope that as we celebrate our campus’s discoveries and research, we also take time to remember the gift of Christ and God’s love during these seasons. We also invite faculty and staff to participate in every element of the symposium. Lastly, we challenge our students to continue to pursue new ideas and opportunities within and outside our university.
Poster Presentations
Students from the College of Science and Engineering, College of Education and Behavioral Science and the Department of Kinesiology presented the following poster presentations during the Celebration event. Students spent the majority of the semester researching their topic and were able to present their findings to faculty and staff that visited the event during their poster presentations.
Xiaofan Cai, Thao Nguyen: Synthesis and Examination of Binding Properties of Reaction Product between RuCl3 and ligand Allopurinol
Xiaofan Cai: Enzymatic Activity of Drought-Grown Kidney Bean Plants with the Aid of Nano/Bulk Silicon Dioxide
Kira Sprinkle: Disney Wellness Week Unit Plan
Jasmine Garcia: Parental Styles vs. Child Mental Health (Lockdown Edition)
Zaena Alzahrawi: Cramer vs. Tear-light Tape on Ankle Stability & Balance using the BESS Test
Shanelle Bradley: Aloha Wellness Week
Melissa Funk: A Day at the Beach Wellness Weak
Amber Zimmer: Exercise Tolerance and Performance Related to Menstrual Side Effects in College-Aged Females
Sarah Alameddine: Margin Analysis in Patients Treated with Neoadjuvant Systemic Therapy and Breast Conserving Surgery
Alejandra Gutierrez: Levels of Generalized Anxiety Experienced by HCU Students by College
Nicole Salazar: Stress Levels Experienced by College Student Athletes vs. Non-Athletes
Mariana Orozco: A germination study of nSiO2 on the assessment of different priming conditions for optimal plant-nanoparticle interaction
Sarah Molina: H84T Banana Lectin CAR-T Cells to Target Solid Tumors and Associated Tumor Stromal Cells
Paper Presentations
The following students opted to write a paper discussing their research topic. The following research papers were presented in the MCAC Green Room during the symposium. A summary of their research is listed below.
Hope Mcginnis, Breana Herrera, Samira Silva, Taylor Marshall – Starbucks Medicine Ball v. HSM2 Tea
The designed experiment was to create a more effective and cheaper alternative to the Starbucks Medicine Ball. There are claims that this drink is the cure-all for all gastrointestinal and upper respiratory microbes. The Escherichia coli microbe affects the gastrointestinal tract, causing diarrhea, urinary tract infections, respiratory illnesses, and bloodstream infections. While the Enterobacter cloacae microbe causes respiratory infections, soft tissue infections, urinary tract infections, fevers, chills, fatigue, pneumonia, meningitis, and skin infections including inflammation. We put several natural reagents including thyme, ginger, and peppermint to the test against Escherichia coli and Enterobacter cloacae to see how well it inhibited growth compared to the Starbucks Medicine Ball. The disk diffusion method was performed for each microbe, Escherichia coli and Enterobacter cloacae, to measure the zone of inhibition for each reagent, thyme, ginger, and peppermint.
LaShaun Bailey – Understanding and Managing Stress Among College Students
Stress is a common shared experience among college students, and a variety of stressors affect their overall well-being and academic performance. College students face stressors such as financial situations, academic overload, family issues, and uncertainty regarding employment after graduation. Twenty-five college students from the Kinesiology Department at Houston Christian University participated in a survey to assess the effect stress has on their personal lives and academic performance. The survey aimed to identify the key factors that contributed to their stress and how students are managing them. The results showed that 95% of respondents (n = XXX) experienced cognitive stress such as difficulty concentrating while 100% of students experienced feeling the need to withdraw and isolate as a form of social stress, which impacts their mental health, physical well-being, behavior, and academic performance. Being able to develop essential resources to help students mitigate their stress and develop strategies to improve their mental health is integral to the future cohorts and their success. Students also expressed the need for the university to implement a class on how to manage stress, speaking about stress management within the classroom amongst peers, and better therapy on campus.
Marisol Balderas – Wilson, Coolidge, and the Constitution: How True Progress is to be Attained
President Woodrow Wilson sought to overturn the Constitution in the name of progress. For him, the Constitution was an outdated document that impeded advancement by imposing limits on how progress could be achieved. However, this idea was challenged most convincingly by Wilson’s successor, Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge demonstrated that progress could never be secured by rejecting the Constitution because the Constitution had been grounded in permanent truths about human nature. He showed that we can only make progress by acknowledging eternal principles and living in accordance with them, instead of by attempting to overcome them and seeking to make them serve us. He thus argued that more progress will be made as we come closer to a fuller recognition of eternal things.
Sarah Molina – H84T Banana Lectin CAR-T Cells to Target Solid Tumors and Associated Tumor Stromal Cells
During my time interning at the Baylor College of Medicine Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, my research focused on a novel cancer treatment that has been explored in few laboratories worldwide. By utilizing conventional CAR T-cells, H84T Banana Lectin CAR T-cells, and dual CAR T-cells alongside multiple cancer cell lines, we were able to better determine the best approach to the heterogeneous and hostile tumor microenvironment that cancer patients face.