Tag: Sociology and Anthropology

Empire of Guano: Tracing the Socio-Ecological Impact of Bird Dung Extraction from the 19th Century to the Present (Mauricio Betancourt)

Remote: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/9/2025 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/18/2025.

Project Description

This project examines the historical significance of guano (bird dung) as a global commodity and its lasting impact on contemporary issues such as agriculture, legislation, and global trade. The student researcher(s) will contribute to investigating the evolution of Peruvian guano extraction throughout the 20th century and into the present, focusing on its ecological and social aspects. The goal is to establish a historical continuum from the 19th century to the present. Tasks may include online archival research, literature reviews, analyzing data, and co-drafting sections of a book manuscript. This project offers hands-on experience in interdisciplinary research, data analysis, and academic writing.

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Prerequisites

Interest in environmental history, ecology, sociology, and global studies. Interest in academic reading and writing. Familiarity with basic research methods is a plus but not required. Completion of ENV 201 and ENV 202 is preferred but not required. Proficiency in Spanish is a plus but not required.

Special Comments

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/9/2025

Estimated End Date: 7/18/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: Remote

Contact Information: Mauricio Betancourt (email: mbetancourt@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Enslavement at Liberty Hall: Uncovering the Archaeology and Forgotten History of W&L’s Iconic Back Campus (Donald Gaylord)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/9/2025 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/18/2025.

Project Description

During the summer of 2025 Professor Gaylord will continue his research at Liberty Hall, the location of the iconic 18th-century campus of our predecessor institution, Liberty Hall Academy. In the 1970s, Professor John McDaniel and roughly a decade of W&L students excavated here, focusing largely on the academic period of the site’s occupation (1782-1803). Professor Gaylord’s research has shown that after the Liberty Hall Academy House burned down in January 1803, the two subsequent land owners held roughly one hundred African Americans in bondage at Liberty Hall as the labor force for agriculture and light industry over the years between 1803 and the American Civil War. Our work this summer will focus on excavation in the yard spaces around the Foundation at Liberty Hall—Liberty Hall Structure 9—the academy’s Steward’s House/Dining Hall, which later served as the center of enslaved life at Liberty Hall Plantation. Enslaved people lived here, but they also likely operated a forge, cooked and ate, performed washerwoman and seamstress work, and operated one of the earliest African American schoolhouses in the Valley of Virginia. Additionally, we will concentrate on artifact processing and analysis in trying to understand what life was like for the people held in bondage at Liberty Hall. We will excavate while the weather allows, we will process and analyze the sediments and artifacts when the weather keeps us indoors, and we will visit archives in Rockbridge and Augusta County that hold many of the documents related to Liberty Hall.

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Prerequisites

It would be best if they have taken an archaeology class with me, especially Field Methods in Archaeology, but I can get them up to speed in the week of preparation before the AIM Program in Archaeology starts.

Special Comments

They will be better off to take my Field Methods in Archaeology class during spring term, or an individual study with me during winter term, but they will not be required.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/9/2025

Estimated End Date: 7/18/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 2

Research Location: On campus

Contact Information: Donald Gaylord (email: gaylordd@wlu.edu)

CLOSED: Machine Learning Models of Beliefs, Values, and Expectations (Jon Eastwood)

On campus: this project is scheduled to begin on 6/16/2025 and run for 6 weeks, finishing on 7/25/2025.

Project Description

This summer’s research will build on research done with SRS students last summer, laying the groundwork for my new project on cynicism and distrust in public life.  This summer, we will use a variety of machine learning models to explore patterns of distrust and cynicism in global public opinion, focusing on World Values Survey data (https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org), joined with country and country-year data from a variety of sources (UN Human Development Reports, the World Bank, and more).  This will include using random forest models to predict individuals’ trust responses and then using these models to select important features for explanatory modeling.  We will also use generalized additive models (GAMs) to explore patterns of interest to the PI and to student researchers, as appropriate.  Questions to explore include the relationship between measures of institutional functioning and (dis)trust, population heterogeneity and (dis)trust, and economic performance and (dis)trust).

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Prerequisites

Some prior experience working with applied data science (R or Python) is expected.  It would be ideal if student researchers already have some fluency with basic wrangling and data visualization using the tidyverse suite in R.

Exposure to social science theory (e.g., sociology, anthropology, political science, economics) would be helpful.

If applicants have questions about their preparation in these respects they are encouraged to reach out to the professor.

Special Comments

Students with otherwise strong credentials but who don’t have prior R experience could satisfy this requirement by enrolling in the professor’s 1-credit “R for Social Scientists” course in winter, 2025.

Project Information (subject to change)

Estimated Start Date: 6/16/2025

Estimated End Date: 7/25/2025

Estimated Project Duration: 6 weeks

Maximum Number of Students Sought: 3

Research Location: On campus

Contact Information: Jon Eastwood (email: eastwoodj@wlu.edu)