Interdisciplinary Research Teams

Project Description: The interdisciplinary undergraduate research team will conduct their work within the Rutgers University Geology Museum (RUGM) to tell the story and history of the museum’s most famous resident, Manny, a 12-foot-tall fully articulated Mastodon skeleton. The team will synthesize historical and scientific data to produce a children's book that brings Manny’s story to life in a way that is easily accessible to the public. The project will build upon previous research conducted by student interns and other researchers.

Team members will equally examine archival documents, scientific literature, and pedagogical theories to create a book that meets the current educational and curricular needs of K-12 students. By leveraging the diverse skills and expertise of the team members, the project aims to create an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to science communication and education. Additionally, the final product will accurately portray the history of the museum and the mastodon exhibit, as well as highlight the diverse people who contributed to the research and educational mission of the RUGM since its opening in 1872.

Apply for the IRT project here.  

Project Description: During the 1970’s and early 1980’s, all the major professional, international, collegiate and scholastic organizations governing the game of basketball for both men and women adopted a rule change whereby shots made from approximately twenty feet away from the basket or further would be worth three points instead of two. This project will investigate the reasons for this change, both the competitive rationales provided by the governing bodies, and the social pressures beyond those rationales that may have influenced them. 

In particular the project will examine possible racial anxieties. The issue of race has played a major role in the development of most team sports both in the United States and in other countries. These have been especially marked in the recent history of basketball for a variety of reasons. The most obvious rationale for the three point rule was to compensate for what was seen as the growing advantage accruing to the tallest players. 

As the proportion of black players among best of the tallest players in both the professional and major college game grew strikingly from 1950’s into the 1970’s, it seems likely that at least some of the motivation for this change was racial anxiety. However, the project will be looking to establish all of the possible causes and their interrelations. One of the differences between this project and most scholarship on sport will be its focus on the relation between external, social and and historical contexts for a sport and its internal structures, (that is, its rules). Sports studies is a relatively new field and by definition a multi-disciplinary one. One can find important contributions from a wide variety from established disciplines, including history, sociology, communications, literary studies, philosophy, and religion. 

Of the major team sports, basketball is comparatively understudied. (The most studied American sports are baseball and American football. The most studied internationally are soccer and cricket.) This project’s concentration on the conjunction between external and internal should also enable it to draw on almost all of these disciplines to one degree or another. This project has emerged out of a course on the culture of sport I have been teaching for the past decade. Most recently I taught it as a CORE course.

Apply for the IRT project here. 

Project description: Millions of eligible voters abstain from voting in every major state and federal election cycle in the United States. Low participation levels can have a detrimental effect on perceptions of the legitimacy of democracy as a whole and the health and well-being of communities. The American Medical Association has listed voter participation as a social determinant of health, indicative of the perceived importance of civic participation. In recent election cycles, nonprofit groups have started to get out the vote and help register voters in healthcare settings, such as hospitals, doctor’s offices, and community health centers. The idea is that by bringing voting resources to places that people visit in their daily lives (when they are not thinking about politics) from trusted sources (e.g., doctors and social workers) these resources might be better able to reach and mobilize people who would otherwise not participate in elections. 

The most effective ways for healthcare settings to engage the public in get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts and the potential positive and negative byproducts of these efforts are still not fully known. This project will help to study strategies for using healthcare settings and other everyday locations in GOTV efforts and develop a communications toolkit for best practices in doing so— informed by interview and survey research conducted during the project.

Apply for the IRT Project here.