Cañada Students Recognized by Bay Honors Research Symposium

Think You?!, the Proceedings of the Bay Honors Research Symposium, is the collection of student work of those who present at the Bay Honors Research Symposium. The Symposium is held annually and is organized by the Bay Honors Consortium. All students who present at the Symposium are accepted via a competitive process and all work is done as part of an honors course, or an honors contract, at a California Community College. In order to have their work published on Think You?!, students must have presented their work at the Symposium and have their work fully vetted by their mentoring professors. The mentors check the work for accuracy, ethics with respect to procedure, correct citation for the discipline, and overall logic of work. Students submit a paper of their work, a video of their presentation, or both. 

The Bay Honors Consortium (BHC) Proposal Committee met in early March 2020 to review the proposals that the Cañada College Honors students submitted and selected the best proposals to be presented at the Bay Honors Research Symposium. Out of 209 proposals submitted, they accepted 93, which is 45 percent of submissions. The original plan was to hold the 2020 Symposium at Stanford on May 2. However, due to COVID, the BHC made the difficult decision to cancel the in-person Symposium and, alternatively, honor the hard work of the stellar students by publishing Think You?! 2020. The following Cañada College Honors students, and their respective professors, were recognized and published by the BHC in Think You?! 2020. 

• In Art History, mentored by Denise Erickson, Students Renalyn Ejada and Jeison Velásquez were recognized with “What Responsibility does Public Art Have to the Public?” 

• In Literature, mentored by Lisa Palmer, Student Nigel Hawkins was recognized with “They’d Rather Us Dead: Racism, Drugs, and Oppression in 1950s Harlem.” In Hawkins’ research, he expands on the disparities in housing, education, and opportunity between White Americans and Black Americans living in Harlem. Hawkins relates his childhood to Sonny, who is a character in American Novelist James Baldwin’s story, Sonny’s Blue’s. Hawkins says, “When I read Baldwin, I understood how the society I lived in pushed me away from recognizing who I truly am. Baldwin inspires me and gifts me a new perspective towards the direction I am going toward in my life.” 

• In Economics, mentored by Paul Roscelli, Student Elena Thai was recognized with “The Price is Not Always Right: How Offline and Online Pricing in Drugstores Impact Retailers and Consumers.” In Thai’s research of online pricing, she found “Online shopping has become a pertinent method of shopping over the years due to its convenience, ease, and accessibility, but within drugstores there is evidence of price discrimination which is selling identical products at different prices to maximize profits.” 

• Also, in Economics, mentored by Paul Roscelli and Rebekah Taveau, Student Kaisen Yao was recognized with “Conflict and Resolution: The 2007-08 Financial Crisis.” Kaisen’s goal was to “analyze the causes - overdependence on financial derivatives, credit-rating agencies’ fraud, and the widespread economic globalization - and the socio-economic consequences in the U.S. In order to avoid a recurrence of a recession, the U.S. government should appropriately reduce the use of expansionary policies such as tax cuts and interest rate cuts.”

• In Psychology and Economics, mentored by Paul Roscelli and Patty Hall, Students Jana Gaskin and David Chabra were recognized with “Ignorance in the Age of Information: The Truth about Vaping.” Gaskin’s and Chabra’s goal was to reveal the true effects of vaping and investigate teen misconceptions about e-cigarettes. In Gaskin’s and Chabra’s research, they found “Understanding what drives ignorance, especially among adolescents, is pivotal in discovering strategies to discourage the pursuit of vaping and similar behaviors. Battling misinformation with facts can potentially help curb the recent surge of vaping among young adults and teens.” 

Gaskin, who submitted two proposals on vaping, says, “Cañada supported David and I through informative consultations. Every professor we interacted with gave prompt, clear responses that were immensely helpful in answering questions and guiding research. Additionally, we worked closely with the Cañada Middle College program to gain access to high school students for the survey we conducted as part of our research process. We were also aided by Cañada Research Librarians, who helped direct us to the correct databases and library resources.”

Chabra agreed and said, “Cañada’s support was invaluable during our research project. We also got many great suggestions from other faculty members about different articles to research.” Gaskin advises Cañada College students looking to write and be published in Think You?! should “Choose a topic that you’re genuinely interested in and passionate about, because the process of creating an academically rigorous research project is long and difficult even when you’re really excited about it, so trying to get through that process when you’re bored and unmotivated would be really challenging.” 

Congratulations to all of the students, and their mentors, on your work and recognition.