WLU announced the winners and runner ups for the third annual Research, Creative, Activity, and Performance (RECAP) symposium and competition via Topper Station on April 14, 2021. President Evans provided the introduction to the awards ceremony for the 2021 competition.

RECAP is open to all WLU undergraduate and graduate students “with the goal of recognizing and rewarding outstanding achievement in scholarly Research, Creative Activity, and Performance” according to the RECAP website. The symposium began during the 2017-2018 academic year, and was canceled in 2019-2020 (what would have been the third year) due to COVID-19. In previous years, the ceremony took place in College Hall; however, the ceremony took place on Topper Station this year due to the pandemic.

The categories for RECAP include creative work and performance presentations, oral presentations, research paper and poster (display and presentation). The disciplines include business, communications, creative performance education, health sciences, humanities and social sciences, natural sciences and visual communication.

The winner for the paper category was undergraduate Kendall Souder with “Resazomycins: A Family of Novel Antibiotics to Target Clinically Significant Gram-Negative Bacteria”. Winner for the poster category was undergraduate Haley Miller with “Trophic Partitioning of Cambarus carinirostris, Cambarus robustus, and Faxonius obscurus in Kings Creek, W. Va. by Stable Isotope Analysis.” Graduate student Michelle Williams also won the best poster category with “Target Training Juvenile False Water Cobras (Hydrodynastes giga)”. Presentation winner was Souder with “Determining the mechanism of action of resasomycins, a novel family of antibiotics”. Creative Works winner was undergraduate Michelle Eisen with “I Think I’ll Miss You”. The runner ups for each category can be seen on Topper Station during the awards ceremony.

Instructor of Communication at WLU, Professor Danielle Mehlman-Brightwell, oversaw the oral presentation category, created the awards presentation, produced the video and coordinated the news releases. According to Mehlman-Brightwell, each winner for each category won a Kindle Fire. Mehlman-Brightwell’s favorite part about RECAP is viewing students’ research and presenting the awards. “I joined RECAP committee because I wanted to be involved in students’ research by recognizing and rewarding their outstanding achievements,” said Mehlman-Brightwell.

Assistant Professor of English, Dr. Drew Banghart, was in charge of the research paper submissions and made the rubrics for judging papers. “My favorite aspect [of RECAP] is just encouraging student research. Research is what elevated university education over primary education, and it’s good to see students beginning to master the skills necessary to participate in academic conversations,” said Banghart.

Professor of Biology, Dr. Robert Kreisburg, was the chair of the RECAP Committee. “Faculty members on the committee were in charge of specific categories, and faculty from across campus judged the entries,” according to Kreisburg. His advice to students thinking about joining is to “do it.” Kreisburg explained, “It lets everyone see what you are doing outside of the classroom. All the students who enter say they enjoy the experience even if they didn’t win.”

For more information regarding RECAP, please visit the website at westliberty.edu/recap/. Any questions regarding the content within this article should be directed to Annalise Murphy at [email protected].