The School of Natural and Applied Science (SNAS) Seminar transpires throughout the fall semester and is open to all students and faculty.
The main goal of the science seminar is to allow a presenter to communicate their scholarly work in an open forum to their audience. The STEM faculty invites anyone — students, staff and faculty of different disciplines — to join the seminar, Brian Dewar, coordinator of the seminar and department co-chair and associate professor of biology, said.
“For Taylor students who attend the seminar, my hope is that they hear and understand something that they did not know existed before they came to the seminar,” Dewar said.
Lori Fauquher, director of Taylor University’s physician assistant program, spoke at the seminar on Monday, Sept. 25. She explained that the science seminar mainly focused on people sharing their research or publications.
Fauquher presented information on the new physician assistant (PA) graduate program, the required prerequisites for PA school and how students should plan for the application process. Her targeted audience were undergraduate science majors thinking about healthcare.
PA programs typically take two years to complete. The average nationwide is about 27 months, Fauquher said. She and her team lean towards 27 months, sometimes 24.
Fauquher anticipates difficulty in graduate students participating in the Taylor community. She said that Taylor has a history of primarily undergraduate programs, so moving toward graduate programs is new and some things are uncertain. She wanted to establish and deepen relationships with faculty and students.
The seminar provided her with that opportunity.
Many of the science faculty sat in on her lecture, supporting and encouraging her. Afterwards, students displayed interest as well by asking questions.
“What I love the most is developing relationships, not only with the undergraduate students, which is super important, but also the faculty,” Fauquher said. “And just being invited to be a part of that — I was absolutely overjoyed just because my goal this semester was to reach out to undergraduate science faculty and get students in the classroom.”
On Monday, Oct. 2, Jessica Outcalt (’16), a Taylor graduate, lectured on ornithology, ecology and extension outreach for the SNAS seminar.
Her lecture impacted sophomore Lacey Ogle — one of the attendees. An environmental science major, Ogle found herself inspired by Outcalt’s relatability and passion.
“Everything that she talked about and brought up about her experience at Taylor and job searching and everything really, really connected to things that I've experienced,” Ogle said.
Similar to Outcalt, Ogle worked at the Purdue extension. Both share similar desires to steward and protect God’s creation. The fact that Outcalt found her passion through the courses Ogle will take, inspired her own career aspirations, Ogle said.
Ogle explained that as a student, she had the opportunity to witness the impact of Outcalt’s contributions to Taylor. For instance, Outcalt had a hand in the rain garden, the trails in Randall and the aquaponics.
The science seminar takes place every Monday from 4 to 5 p.m. during the fall semester in the Euler Science Complex, room 109. Dewar said he desires to have a mix of outside speakers, internal TU faculty speakers, TU alumni who are in graduate school or very early in their career, and some current TU students who are conducting mentored research in SNAS departments. The mixture of speakers varies from year to year.
