The list of recipients of the WTAMU Killgore Research Center grants for the 2011-2012 school year has finally been posted.

Each year, the Research Center gives grants to WT student and faculty members who have proposed a research study.

Once the Killgore Research Committee reviews each proposal, an award for up to $1,000 is granted to selected graduate and undergraduate students and an award of $5,000 or less is granted to the selected faculty members.

This year 11 students out of 16 were selected, which included eight graduate students and three undergraduate students.

Of the 17 faculty applications, eight research projects were selected.
WT has one of the few research programs that allow not only graduate students to have their own research projects but undergraduates as well.

“The research program is for all disciplines – English, history, fine arts, it’s more than hard science,” Killgore Research Center Administrative Assistant April Swindell said.
University President Dr. Patrick O’Brien participates by funding the undergraduate summer research program.

“He is always interested in what the students are researching,” Swindell said.
Researchers who take part in the program are asked to present their research at the Pathways Research Convention in November, an event for all schools in the A&M system, Swindell said.

Butler Cain, Assistant Professor of Mass Communication, received this grant last year to study in the archives of the American Antiquarian Society in Worchester, Mass. He wrote his dissertation over Contempt by Publication.

“Having the ability for students to do their own research is “fantastic and necessary to create scholars,” Cain said.

However, this “wonderful opportunity is not as well-publicized as it should be,” Ross Wilson, an undergraduate History major, said.

“I did not know that undergrads could do the research stuff too,” Wilson said. “This gives students the edge they need on their resumes and graduate applications, not just for my department, but for all of them. It even gives them the opportunity to be published.”