Welcome to the fifth issue of New Frontiers!

Faculty accomplishments in research and creative activ­ity serve as the foundation for involving students in research opportunities outside of class. This is one of our priorities. Students publish in the Undergraduate Research Journal, present at UNK’s Student Research Day and present...

Code Breaker

Look more closely, and you’ll see that the color-coded columns hold rows of letters – A, C, T and G. Some are in large groups, while others may be a single row with large chunks of space in between. As she scrolls through page-after-page, her eyes scanning row-after-row, it becomes clear...

Teaching Teachers

Strawhecker, a professor and the assistant chair in the Department of Teacher Education, is an award-winning teacher whose research is focused on finding ways for the next genera­tion of teachers to be even more effective. As an elementary and middle school teacher, she taught math concepts....

Going Global

In a 2009 article published in International Studies, Machida ex­amined how globalization affects the legitimacy of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). He found that globalization does not undermine the legitimacy of IGOs in democratically well-attuned rich states.  For that study,...

Performing Passion

At the age of 17, violinist Ting-Lan Chen was a first prize winner in the National Chamber Music Competition in Taipei, Taiwan, and the summer before she turned 21, she performed in Young Musicians Concerts at the White House and the United Nations as a select violinist from the Asian Youth Orchestra...

Real Virtuality

Avatars are graphical personas of humans placed in a virtual world environment. In 2D, the avatar can be a simple icon; in 3D, a fully representational human. And the size and complexity of the computer-based simulated environments are only limited by the creator’s imagination. Some environments...

Living The Fantasy

Working in his studio on the campus, Stanko laughs when he talks about the uproar he created with that image. His art director at D&D loved the idea, and kept asking him to give the goddess an even fuller figure. Only later did he find out that director had to fight with other executives for...

Corporate Coach

“A company is not just some abstract entity, it’s a collection of people,” Messersmith said. In numerous studies over the past few years, Messersmith has explored the complex rela­tionships between human resource management and business outcomes. His published articles quantify...