Professor, Media & Cultural Studies
Dept. of Communication, Media & Performance
Allegheny College
Box 45. 520 North Main Street
Meadville, PA 16335
EMAIL: iroy@allegheny.edu
STUDENT-FACULTY RESEARCH COLLABORATIONS
Asher Albanese ('23) fields questions during the 02 May 2023 poster presentations at the Richard J Cook – Teresa M Lahti Scholars Symposium. Asher presented on his Senior Thesis: "QAnon Conspiracies and Narrative Community Building on Social Media".
Student-Faculty research collaborations in the Humanities takes many forms: traditional and archival research, field observations and interviews, study abroad reflections that develop into scholarly investigations, independent study explorations of topics, and research/teaching assistantship opportunities that allow students to partner in developing course content and shaping larger projects. Then there is the Senior Thesis, an independent research project that all graduating seniors at the college must successfully complete and defend to earn their degree.
Over the years, competitive mini research grants, through the Provost's Office, have facilitated students being mentored by faculty members on how to scaffold and develop their research projects, which they then present at various scholarly venues.
STUDENT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS(2024)
Jah'farri Brown ('24) & Bintou Fofana ('24) won awards for their presentations at the Sigma XI Penn State Behrend Undergraduate Conference in April 2024. Jah'ffari spoke on Afrofuturism, Black Hope, and Black Panther
Katherine Perez ('24) did a poster presentation of her research on media and moral panics in the reporting on Meghan Markle in the British media. This was at the Sigma XI Penn State Behrend Undergraduate Conference in April 2024
Bintou Fofana ('24) presented her work on auto-ethnography and political podcasting, at the National Council for Undergraduate Research Conference in Long Beach, CA.
ALLEGHENY COLLEGE
SUMMER RESEARCH
COLLABORATIONS
In 2013, Allegheny College received a $600,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support student-faculty collaborative research in the Humanities, which stimulated interdisciplinary faculty-student projects.
In 2016, the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) presented Allegheny College with the inaugural Award for Undergraduate Research Accomplishment (AURA) at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The award was presented to Allegheny — the only baccalaureate college in the nation to receive the award — for the exceptional research experiences that Allegheny provides to its students.
The Allegheny College Research Seminar Series or ACRoSS is an interdisciplinary forum for the presentation of summer research projects developed by students and faculty at Allegheny College. This annual series runs from mid-June to mid-August. During these months, at the weekly lunch meetings held every Tuesday, students present on their specific summer research projects (e.g., proposed experiments, data, anticipated results) to a packed room of students, faculty, staff and administrators, and visitors to the college.
Above: Hunter Goerman & Ray Colabawalla present on "The Glacier's Edge and NWPA EcoTourism" (2022)
Above:Bintou Fofana's presentation at the Summer 2024 URSCA luncheon, on her political poetry podcast "Things Just Got Spicy," and how Gen Z engages politically.
Above:Alexander Bennett (English Literature, Class of ’16), and Karina Mena (Communication Arts, Class of ’16) present research on their experiential learning study abroad seminar in India, led by me.
Here are some of the Allegheny College Research Seminar Series (ACRoSS) projects I have supervised -- many of which have been with students across different disciplines:
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2023 (Spring): Asher Albanese ('23, Media Studies major). "QAnon Conspiracies and Narrative Community Building on Social Media." The poster presentation at the spring 2023 Richard J Cook – Teresa M Lahti Scholars Symposium was based on Asher's Senior Thesis Project, which I supervised, and that won a department award.
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2023 (Summer): Bintou Fofana (International Relations major + double minor in Political Science and French). Bintou's paper ("Things Just Got Spicy — Podcasting, Political Engagement, and Gen Z"), presented at the Allegheny College ACRoSS forum, was presented at the 2024 National Council for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) Conference in Long Beach, CA.
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2022: "The Glacier's Edge and NWPA Eco-Tourism," with Ray Colabawalla (Class of '25, Double Major in Political Science and Economics) and Hunter Goerman (Class of '25, Political Science Major and Communication Minor). A Community Engaged Learning Collaborative Research and Marketing Project with nine county Tourism Boards in NWPA.
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2021: "Defining Pakistani Nationalism through Contesting Masculinities," by Hassan Javed (Class of ’24 Communication), backed by the Frederick F. Seely Humanities Fund.
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2019: "Necropolitics, Dark Tourism and the Commodification of Pain," with Tanner Kolb (Communication, Political Science Majors, Class of '21). Supported by the Frederick F. Seely Humanities Fund.
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2018: "Bringing History to Life: The Importance of Archival Research," with Marisol Santa Cruz (Communication Arts, Class of '20). Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Collaborative Undergraduate Research in the Humanities Grant.
Click here or on the image on the right to see the larger version of the 2018 poster,"Bringing History to Life: The Importance of Archival Research" project, with former student Marisol Santa Cruz ('20).
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2017: "Anything but Country: The Dangers of Disregarded Discourses," with Margaret West (Communication Arts, Class of '18). Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Collaborative Undergraduate Research in the Humanities Grant.
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2016: “A Cultural Comparison of Preventative Health Education Campaigns for Mosquito-Borne Diseases.” Jonathan Yee (Art & Computer Science Major, Class of '17). The project drew from field observations during a three-week Experiential Learning Seminar in Sri Lanka with Prof. Sinha Roy, and research done back in the U.S. to inform his findings on how public awareness and preventative measures to prevent diseases like Malaria, Dengue, and Zika are impacted by public health communication campaigns. We received funding from an Howard Hughes Medical Institute Global Health Studies Grant to do this work
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2016: "White Rage and Post-Racial Politics in America," with Arianna O’Connell (Communication Arts, Class of ’18) and Cassandra Bachik (Communication Arts and Journalism in the Public Interest, Class of ’18). Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Collaborative Undergraduate Research in the Humanities Grant.
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2014 -- "Putting Theory into Practice: How do we learn through Studying Abroad?" with returning researcher and Peer Mentor Alexander Bennett (English Literature, Class of ’16), and Karina Mena (Communication Arts, Class of ’16). Their research was informed by participant observations during an Allegheny College EL Seminar to India led by prof. Sinha Roy, and supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Collaborative Undergraduate Research in the Humanities Grant.
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2013: "Study Abroad: A Critical Evaluation of Study Abroad and Experiential Learning Programs" with Alexander Bennett (English Literature, Class of '16). The project entailed a substantive literature review on the topic, and learning about scaffolding in preparing for a longer research project. Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Collaborative Undergraduate Research in the Humanities Grant.
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2013: "Corporatizing Global Health," with Aviv Crowell Lang (Behavioral Economics). The research was based on field observations and interviews during an Allegheny College Experiential Learning (EL) seminar to Kenya with Prof. Sinha Roy. Supported in part by an HHMI grant.
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2012: "Customer Satisfaction, Artistic Freedom and the Mass Effect 3 Ending Controversy," with Gabrielle Stitt (English Literature, Creative Writing, Class of '13
In 2016, three communication arts students: Shu Yi Tang (Class of '17), Lily Loreno (Class of '17), and Margaret West (Class of '18) won a campus-wide storyboarding contest organized by Byron Rich (Associate Prof., Art Dept.) and myself, to produce competitive branding ideas for a recruitment commercial for Acutec Precision Aerospace Inc. This local giant manufacturer in Meadville, PA, has a client list that includes Bell Helicopter, GE Aviation, Goodrich Corp., Meggit Aircraft Braking Systems Corp., Parker Hannifin and Messier Bugatti Dowty.
The three students worked under my supervision through the summer of 2016 to develop a brand line for the company ("It all starts here") and the recruitment commercial that ran on the Acutec website, and played at the local movie theater:
The 30-sec version of the Acutec spot