Faculty Research and Teaching Scholarship

Title: Developing EDA (Explorative Data Analysis) Methods For Residential Mobility Data 
Applicants: Sohyun Park, Brian Colchao (Computational Data Sciences) 

Summary: 

The research proposal aims to develop Explorative Data Analysis (EDA) methods to analyze residential mobility patterns and evaluate the impact of recent changes such as climate, pandemic, and urbanization pressures. Currently, there is a lack of systematic methods for exploring residential mobility at the individual level and most studies rely on small-scale survey data or county-level migration data. This project will use Complex Residential Mobility data to discover new patterns and compare the residential mobility of different groups in a city. 
The project consists of two sub-projects, visualization and trajectory cluster analysis, led by Dr. Park and Prof. Colchao respectively. The visualization sub-project aims to develop a polar diagram for visualizing residential mobility and a flow-based segregation index for inter-city comparisons. The trajectory cluster analysis sub-project aims to use deep learning techniques for clustering residential mobility trajectories. 
 
 

Title: Carving Out Korean Space Within the U.S. Academia: Korean Students’ Contribution To The American Knowledge Of Korea, The 1950s-1960s 
Applicant: Sang Mee Oh 

Summary:  

This proposal is to complete a paper focusing on Korean students who immigrated to the US during the mid-1950s and became first-generation scholars of Korean Studies in the US in the 1960s. The researcher will examine their dissertations, books, and articles written during the 1960s and 1970s to assess their contribution to US academia and explore the ramifications of their contribution to the scholarship of first-generation scholars of Korean Studies in the US. 
To carry out the research, the researcher will analyze dissertations, books, and scholarly articles written by Korean students who studied abroad during the mid-1950s, including scholars such as Chong Sun Kim, Hugh Kang, Doo Soo Suh, and others. She will trace the key themes in their research and analyze how they integrated these themes into the modernization theory of the 1960s in US academia.   

Title: Translation and Annotation of Master Hanshan’s “Answer to Zheng kunyan [Da Zhengkunyan Zhongcheng]” 
Applicant: ChangGyo Ryu 

Summary:  

The proposed research project aims to translate and annotate Master Hanshan's "Answer to Zheng kunyan [Da Zhengkunyan Zhongcheng]", a Dharma talk written by the famous scholarly monk of the Ming Dynasty in China. The purpose of the research is to improve the accuracy of the translation and to share the important information contained in this concise and easy Dharma talk about the essence of the human mind taught in Zen Buddhism. This project will yield a paper to be submitted for publication. 

Title: Transitivity Analysis of Academic Writing Proficiency in a Transnational Education 
Context: Exploration of Ideational Meanings from First-Year Pathway Students’ Expository Essays 
Applicant: Eunhee Seo 

Summary: 

The proposed research examines the linguistic features of academic writing produced by students taking the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) 110 composition course at George Mason University Korea. The study focuses on students’ utilization of ideational metafunctions of language as a way to identify evidence of writing development and areas of need in the transitivity patterns of lexico-grammar resources. The researcher plans to collect 17 students’ final papers from the EAP 110 course, which will be graded based on the rubric and then placed into three levels of writing performance and proficiency. The study will employ a textual analysis focusing on the utilization of transitivity manifested in student essays across different writing proficiency levels. The research aims to provide insight into more linguistically-focused instructional approaches for second language (L2) writing and explore the benefits of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) based pedagogic training for EAP composition instructors. The results of this analysis will be summarized in a manuscript to be submitted for publication. 

Title: SoTL Project in a Mason Korea Classroom: Social Interactions and Experiential Learning that Facilitate Student Learning 

Applicant: Hyunjin Deborah Kwak 

Summary: 

The research focuses on the relationship between social interactions in a classroom and student learning. Due to the geographical characteristic of GMUK situated in Songdo, it provides a unique cultural space for students with varying levels of cultural awareness and experience. The researcher aims to understand the conditions for learning and is specifically interested in the social interactions that students have within their groups that support or hinder learning. The study will be conducted in the Sociology 355 course, and the researcher will use an undergraduate research assistant Ms. Kieun Kwon who will observe the class and take ethnographic notes of the students' behavior. The researcher will also conduct 20 semi-structured interviews of students to get their perspective on the social interactions they have in the classroom. The ethnographic data and the interview responses will be analyzed to understand the social conditions and interactions that promote or impede learning. The researcher aims to contribute to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) by publishing the findings of this study. 
 

Title: Elements Short Film 
Applicant: John David McGrew 

Summary: 

The project aims to produce a 2–3-minutes animated short film blends both digital and traditional animation techniques. The film will also use 3D printing technology for creating rapid prototyped replacement faces for the characters in the film. The researcher, who is a creative scholar and animated filmmaker with experience in various short films and commercial projects, will produce this project in stages. It will begin with the preproduction aspects such as script writing, storyboarding, concept art and animatic. The production of the film will take place next, including the research and development of 3D printed replacement faces, primary photography and animation, and post-production. The film will be submitted to film festivals around the world in 2024 and 2025, and the researcher will write a project report and an article documenting the findings and experience.  

Title: “Promoter of Social Justice or Colonizer of the Mind” 
Applicant: Alice Wrigglesworth

The researcher is applying for partial funding to attend and co-present at the 2023 TESOL International Convention and English Language Expo in Portland, OR, USA. The conference is relevant to the researcher’s experiences as an English language educator and focuses on advancing the field of language instruction. The researcher is co-presenting on a topic called "Promoter of Social Justice or Colonizer of the Mind," which outlines a process for holding important discussions on social justice issues while avoiding the potential for abuse. 

This applicant received additional funds for professional association membership dues and conference registration and workshop fees connected to their field of instruction.  

Title:  Development of two courses Survey of Korean History and Korean Society and Culture 
Applicant: Sang Mee Oh 

The researcher is applying for the Mason Korea Faculty Research and Development Award to develop two new courses for the academic year 2023-2024: "Survey of Korean History" and "KORE 300 Korean Culture and Society." The two courses will cover the basics of Korean history that examines Korean history from ancient to modern and focus on current social and cultural issues in Korea with co-curricular activities, respectively.  

Title: Attendance at Andrew Marvell Society Executive Committee Meeting 
Applicant: Hyunyoung Cho 

This faculty member was recently elected as a member of the Executive Committee of Andrew Marvell and was awarded a summer grant for the development of their paper to present at the  Andrew Marvell Society’s gathering as part of South Central Renaissance Conference in University of California - Berkeley. Attendance at the conference is required for the elected position. In addition, participation in the conversations at the conference will support course design and pedagogical development.