Undergraduate researchers receive double awards

Undergraduate researchers receive double awards

Feb. 15, 2022 LA GRANDE, Ore. – They say knowledge is its own reward, but getting rewarded for knowledge can be just as nice. The Eastern Oregon Science Journal (EOSJ) gets to enjoy both knowledge and recognition with its 2019-2021 publication. 

The EOSJ, a student-published journal for Eastern Oregon University undergraduate works in scientific disciplines, received two awards from the American Scholastic Association. 

The journal received the “Most Outstanding College Magazine for 2021” and “First Place with Special Merit 2021” awards from the American Scholastic Association, an academic review organization covering all publications from high school and undergraduate academic journals in the United States. 

“The last three years I know we’ve received awards from them, and then on and off for previous years’ journals,” Assistant Editor Kimberly Ortiz said.

The latest edition began in Fall Term 2020 and sent out the final prints to authors and faculty in May 2021. The Journal has four staff, two supervisors, one editor and one assistant editor, and all contributing authors are EOU students and alumni.  

“All of our submissions are student articles, either current or past students. Quite a few of them have research work that they’re doing with professors on campus. Our math articles were research work with Amy Yielding and one of the biology articles was with Joe Corsini,”  Ortiz said. 

In total, the magazine has 10 student authors and five articles, one in biochemistry, one in biology, and in exercise physiology and two in mathematics. Professor Amy Yielding contributed to both math articles.  

“Most of the math articles have three to four authors a piece, so we were upwards of ten. And then each of the articles has at least one faculty that reviews it before we get it. So, you’re probably looking at about 20 people in total,” Ortiz said. 

All work for the 2019-2021 publication was carried out remotely, with staff only recently meeting in person again. 

“I actually just met one of the faculty two weeks ago in-person. Other than that, we’ve done everything via Zoom. So, I feel pretty good about the fact that we were able to receive awards for something that was done completely online essentially…I think it’s a really good indicator of how involved the Eastern Oregon community is,” Ortiz said.  

In addition, the Eastern Oregon Social Science Journal (EOSSJ), a distinct branch of the EOSJ founded in 2015, will publish its 2020-2022 edition  this spring and include articles from a variety of colleges at EOU. 

“This is only the fourth edition of the social science journal that we’re going to publish this year, so it’s pretty new. All our articles this year are actually from more different disciplines than we’ve ever had published before. We have a multicultural literature one and we’ve never had an article from that discipline before. I think that’s really great that we’re able to reach out to different parts of the school,” Ortiz said. 

The award-winning 2019-2021 EOSJ is available online at eou.edu/scijou/2022/02/10/xxvi-2019-2021. Abstract and article submissions for the 2021-2023 Science Journal and 2022-2024 Social Science Journal are currently open. Archives for the Science Journal may be found at eou.edu/scijou/category/scijou-journals and the Social Science Journal at eou.edu/scijou/category/social-science-journals.