Highlands College Conducts Research, Creative and Scholarly Activity Celebration

Highlands College will hold its Spring Student Research, Creative and Scholarly Activity Celebration on Wednesday, April 1st.  The event will feature poster presentations from 46 students of various majors.  All students, faculty, staff and the greater Butte Community are invited to view the students’ poster presentations in the Commons at Highlands College.

“Doing this project really turned out to be a lot of fun,” said Psychology student, Suzanne Nalivka. “At first, the idea of actually doing this project seemed kind of overwhelming. But with the help of the faculty, we really got into it. I never imagined myself doing something like this. ”

Some of the student projects explore very serious themes, such as student stress, technology usage, alcohol abuse and depression. Other projects explore topics such as Thompson Park, human resources in the Butte region and the Russian Chernobyl disaster. One project goes in the complete opposite direction with a creative and fun board game encouraging physical fitness.

“We are very proud of our students,” said Highlands College Accounting Technology Faculty, Vickie Petritz. “These projects were hard work for the students, but they were also very fulfilling. They had to utilize critical thinking, organization, persistence and motivation; the same skills they will need after they graduate.”

 “So often, the word ‘research’ conjures up narrow visions of lab coats and test tubes,” said Dr. John M. Garic, Dean of Highlands College. “We feel very differently. We purposefully use the phrase ‘research, creative and scholarly activities’ in order to demonstrate and celebrate the broad array of projects of original inquiry conducted by our students from across the spectrum of disciplines – from accounting to radiologic technology. These projects generate a lot of excitement and they evidence to the public the rigorous level of academic work being done by our Highlands College students.”

For any further information about this event, please contact Dr. John M. Garic, Dean, at 406-496-3714 or Amanda Badovinac at 406-496-