Welcome to Inquiry ‘10
Welcome to the sixth issue of Inquiry, the online undergraduate research journal of the University of New Hampshire.
Inquiry was created to support the academic mission of UNH as a research and public service university. It offers undergraduate researchers in all the disciplines at the University the opportunity to communicate their experiences and results to general as well as academic audiences—the final and very important step in the research process.
These Inquiry articles are based on undergraduate research done for a course or project under the direction of one or more faculty mentors. These faculty members go out of their way to support the students’ research; often they are closely involved in the writing of the Inquiry article as well. Read about them along with the students they mentored at Authors and Mentors. In addition, in this issue we begin a Mentor Highlights page where we profile two faculty members who have been especially active in promoting undergraduate research and mentoring Inquiry authors.
As in previous issues, you can read here about a wide range of research subjects: from music in Appalachia and migrant workers in Connecticut, to post-genocide Rwanda, Muslims in France, and New Hampshire search-and-seizure law. One UNH graduate discusses her inquiry into DNA transmission in strawberries, while another tells us about his journey from India to UNH and on to Scotland to study astronomy.
Several articles and commentaries support this year’s University Dialogue on health and describe HIV testing in Uganda, spinal cord injury recovery and aboriginal health care in Australia, the nutritional values of New Hampshire milk and cheese, and a way for towns to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions. A feature article surveys the different aspects of health being researched by UNH undergraduates.
Five new editors joined three from last year on Inquiry’s volunteer student editorial board. (This spring we will say farewell to two graduating editors who have been with us for three years, the maximum number possible.) A graduate student was hired as an assistant editor and writer. These students along with two staff editors worked with the authors from September to April on the revisions necessary to make a technical subject accessible and interesting to a general audience. Along the way we all learned to be more precise, concise and—above all—patient with one another.
This will be the last issue of Inquiry that I will see through to publication. When I first envisioned the journal in 2003, I had no idea of the planning and work that would be involved in developing and sustaining it. I want to thank the Inquiry staff, the student editors and authors, and the faculty mentors for their contributions to the journal during the past six years. It provides a wonderful record of the great diversity of student research at UNH.
Donna Brown, Director of Undergraduate Research
