This week, two Union College professors – Dr. Sunil Karna and Dr. Jayme Kilburn – will present at the Appalachian College Association (ACA) Summit in Knoxville, Tennessee. Seniors Ethan Heck and Laurel Nolan, both from Pineville, along with junior Hannah Baker, from Corbin, will present their Ledford Scholars research projects, as well. Held September 21-22, the annual conference promotes collaboration and networking among the ACA’s 33 private, liberal arts member institutions.

Karna’s collaborative network

Dr. Sunil Karna, associate professor of physics, joins faculty from four other ACA schools to share details of a project they’ve been working on since 2021. Their panel presentation, titled, “Enhancing Undergraduate Research: A Collaborative Network for Smaller Appalachian Institutions” will lay out ways that ACA schools can share their unique resources with each other to expand faculty research and student opportunities.

“Our main goal is to create more experiences for undergraduates to be engaged in research,” Karna says.

A key component of the project, which Karna is overseeing, is the creation of a database designed to increase synergy across ACA schools. For instance, professors could locate member colleges with equipment needed to complete research projects. Students could connect with mentors from other institutions while staying enrolled at their home college. In addition, the database would facilitate opportunities for shared grant funding. Partnering in these ways would save each individual and school valuable time and money while supporting higher learning for all.

The project is also about promoting the teacher-scholar model. Karna says college professors must stay involved in their own scholarship and get their students involved in this work, too. He says doing research helps to deepen students’ learning and gives them a chance to discover possibilities they may not have considered before.

“If you don't do the work, you don't know what you are good at,” he says.

Karna emphasizes that “undergraduate is the root of higher education.” Doing research as undergraduates helps students pursue more advanced degrees after they graduate, he says.

Kilburn’s town & gown discussion

Dr. Jayme Kilburn, assistant professor of theatre, will offer a space to share experiences, ideas, and best practices for communicating with and engaging local communities. She hopes her roundtable discussion, “Town and Gown: Healing Relationships between College and Community” will serve as a “microcosm” of the kind of open dialogue she feels is needed on this topic.

Tension between colleges and surrounding communities goes back to the Middle Ages, Kilburn says. She explains that this stems from the universities’ disproportionate access to resources and economic power and the townspeople’s resulting resentment. On top of this centuries’ old dynamic, heightened political division across the nation makes it challenging for faculty and staff to navigate these relations.

“This happens at every single college,” Kilburn says.

As a community-based theatre practitioner, Kilburn’s focus is on listening to community interests and allowing campus resources to support those goals and initiatives. For instance, Kilburn offers Union’s theater as a rehearsal space for Clay County High School’s theatre program. She also welcomes community members to take her improv workshop, in which participants write, direct, and perform their own stories, free of charge.

By bringing community members onto campus in this way, she hopes to begin to bridge the town & gown divide. Still, figuring out how to balance the community’s needs with the college’s needs and stay true to the college’s inclusive values is tricky, ongoing work. Kilburn looks forward to learning how colleagues from other ACA schools have responded to these challenges.

The goal of the roundtable is to empower participants, including Kilburn, to take new ideas and perspectives back to their home campuses and “be really generative in how we approach the community and the college,” she says.

Ledford Scholars – Baker, Heck, and Nolan

In addition to the presentations by Union faculty, three Union students will share a virtual presentation of the research they completed as Ledford Scholars. Hannah Baker and Laurel Nolan, mentored by Dr. Fidelis Achenjang, will present their work on building a database about rat-tailed maggots in Central and Southern Appalachia. Ethan Heck, mentored by Professor Libby Megna, will present his research on determining the effects of ecological landscapes on salamander abundance in southeast Kentucky.

These video presentations will be posted on the ACA website at a later date.

All three undergraduate students received funding awards through the ACA’s Ledford Scholars Program to complete these projects. Heck is presently working on an additional Ledford project with Megna focused on using machine learning to combat racial bias in skin cancer diagnosis. He will present this research at Union at the end of the semester.

About the ACA

The mission of the ACA is to “serve Appalachian communities through the transformational work of its faculty, staff, and students.” The annual ACA Summit brings college personnel from across the central Appalachian region together to support student success.

• To learn more about the ACA Summit, see Summary - 2023 ACA Summit (cvent.com).
• To learn more about the ACA’s Ledford Scholars Program, see Ledford Scholars • Appalachian College Association (acaweb.org).