Last spring, 47 University students were given the chance to explore a field of their interest. Whether this involved traveling to India to determine the effect of society and culture on individuals' response to chronic pain or looking into crime in small U.S. cities like Charlottesville, students took full advantage of the opportunity.
Unique to the University, the Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards -- more commonly known as Harrison Grants -- provide up to $3,000 per student to pursue a research project that he will plan and implement, working in collaboration with a University faculty member. This two-day series will focus on four of the 2007 projects that are in progress and due to be submitted to the Center for Undergraduate Excellence in March.
Society and culture's effect on response to chronic pain
Fourth-year College student Juliana Schroeder
"Pain is an inherently subjective experience," Schroeder said. "Psychology factors into the whole experience -- whether your pain is internalized or externalized, your background, your culture -- all of that plays into how people cope with pain and how society accepts them for their pain."
Schroeder traveled to the state of Tamil Nadu in India, examining individuals' responses to chronic pain and comparing them with results derived from online surveys she conducted in the United States. Working with a clinical population rather than the surveys turned out to be more different than Schroeder expected.
"When I was actually speaking with the patients, I learned a lot more about their whole life story," Schroeder said. "Different aspects of their psyche, how they were burdened by guilt for different reasons, their family life -- it rounded out the whole experience."
The overall research was interdisciplinary -- Schroeder used statistics to quantify factors related to psychology, medicine and "this whole idea of what culture is."
"Trying to define American versus Indian culture" played a large role in the research, Schroeder said. "It actually became a major challenge, because in India each of the states has its own culture, language, types of food -- you can't apply the particular culture of [Tamil Nadu] to India as a whole."
Another challenge was making the initial plans to allow for research in India. Because her research involved interacting with patients directly, Schroeder had to get permission from the appropriate authorities, including the Institutional Review Board at the University and the Ethics Committee of the Christian Medical College. Psychology Associate Prof. Karen Schmidt, Schroeder's advisor at the University, set Schroeder up with a contact at the World Health Organization, who put her in touch with the Christian Medical College in India.
In addition to helping her find the necessary contacts, Schroeder said Schmidt was "extremely influential" in developing Schroeder's research interests.
Although Schroeder had a clear view of the focus of her research, she was in for many surprises.
"Everything was different," Schroeder said. "It was a more rural area -- there were animals around, goats living right next to me. The Christian Medical Center building [where I was staying] was literally still being built while I was living in it."
Although Schroeder said it was a "little bit difficult" at first, time lit a fire underneath her. With less than a month to work, she threw herself into her research, spending as much time as possible in the hospital. She said she plans to return to India in December, and is currently examining the data from the summer.
"I have not finished all the analysis yet, but clearly, culture does play into the pain experience," Schroeder said. In comparison to U.S. patients, "Indian patients were less likely to express their pain and more likely to have an external locus of control in which their family, religion and spirituality played a large role in their pain experience. Results indicate that they are also less likely to catastrophize [i.e., to overemphasize] and negatively ruminate upon their pain."
Schroeder said the experiences the Harrison Award offered her have been "absolutely invaluable."
"They send U.Va. students out into the world and give them a chance to learn firsthand," Schroeder said.
The research she began this summer may also feed into her future Ph.D. work.
"This is the sort of research experience that's very ongoing," Schroeder said. "The [Harrison Grant] money is not just for a three week experience -- it's for developing my career."
School of Military Government at the University of Virginia, Yale and Harvard
Fourth-year College student Joe Parrott
During his second year, Parrott took a government class in which he learned that during World War II, the Army established a School of Military Government at the University. Although this was the first he had heard of the school, Parrott was immediately interested.
The first School of Military Government, had classes at the University from 1942 to 1946. Later, the program expanded to a number of other schools, but Parrott's research focuses on the schools at the University, Yale and Harvard and how they related to the Army's plans in a post-war world.
Parrott said the Harrison Grant gave him "an excuse" to go to graduate schools he was interested in as well as a "good motivating force to get my name out there and to get out in the academic arena."
Parrott also pointed out that the Library Partners Program -- in which grant recipients are set up with a contact in a University library -- was a major benefit of the Harrison Grant. Parrott was paired up with the person in charge of government documents.
"Going through government documents is the most miserable thing you'll do in your life," Parrott said. "Having someone there to help me, point out things, give me a good understanding of what was there -- it was fantastic."
Although Parrott enjoyed his experience overall, he said his only complaint was that it seemed like many professors were not familiar with requirements of the grant process.
Parrott's research is ongoing. Since the documents Parrott are working with are extremely long, he took a digital camera with him and "essentially took pictures of everything." Currently, he has 3,000 pictures on his laptop and needs to bring all that data together.
"Right now, I'm theorizing," Parrott said. "I went into this project with a clear cut chronology -- a good narrative history. But now I'm looking at what that narrative history reflects about society. How does it illustrate notions of democracy in this real transition period in American history and in democracy itself?"
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