Student Excellence Expo

Program Recap

Portrait Show

Student: Mian Quin

Sponsor: Professor Michael J. Farrell

Mian Quin’s art style reflects the influences of her art education in China and the United States. She creates intuitive portraits rather than intentional decorations, and she uses lines to convey the energy and vitality of an individual in society. Her art is a communication that links the artist, the subject, and the members of the audience.

Phaedra: A Dramatic Reading

Student: Mohammed-Jafar Sohayl Vafai

Professor Nathan Starr

This dramatic reading features a student-written short story that brings to life sociological theories, including the conflict, interactionist, and exchange theories.

Foreign Language As a Gateway to a Better Understanding of People, Cultures, and Religions: Leaving the Comfort Zone and Dispelling Stereotypes and Prejudices Equals Learning

Students: Tahereh Farshneshani, David Galbraith, Tammi Sanzone

Sponsor: Professor Enas Elhanafi

Through a variety of cultural encounters and research opportunities, students in Elementary Arabic I come into contact with Arab Americans, Arabic culture, and the Arab world. The students will discuss their expectations, the impact of these encounters, and their appreciation of the process in a series of reflection papers.

Shakespeare’s Play The Winter’s Tale: Is It a Comedy?

Student: William Lake

Sponsor: Dr. Francine Jamin

Shakespeare’s play The Winter’s Tale is considered one of his problem plays—not a history and not clearly a tragedy or a comedy. Some critics have classified it as a fairy tale. The female characters in The Winter’s Tale, however, demonstrate strong, heroic personalities similar to those that contribute to the comic aspects of the comedies. With a definition of comedy that incorporates these female characters, The Winter’s Tale can be shown to be a comedy. 

Traffic Signal Corporation Ltd.

Student: Muhammad Waqar

Sponsor: Professor Shweta Sen

The Bollywood film Traffic Signal offers insight into the lives of people living near traffic signals in South Asian countries. The presentation highlights child labor, prostitution, poverty, slavery, poor health conditions, women’s rights, and other social problems through film clips and analysis

National Museum of Health and Medicine

Student: Lorena Arias

Sponsor: Dr. Harold Williams

This poster session will review what club members learned on a visit to one of the metropolitan area’s lesser-known museums.

MC Peers

Student: Ahuda Tilahun

Sponsor: Professor Jim Walters

This poster session will explain the work of the MC Peers service organization, which arranges for international students to work with other international students as they enter and go through the United States education system.

Sterile Wound Care and Dressing Change

Students: Wuyetta Sellu, Colima Gibbons

Sponsor: Professor Monique Alston-Davis

This presentation demonstrates the use of a dynamic mannequin (SimMan®) in the teaching of nursing techniques. It also demonstrates how nursing students assist each other in learning as well as the use of videotapes to review students’ performance with them.

Hunger Isn’t Such a Problem—Is It?

Student: Minhtien Tom

Sponsor: Dr. Gregory Ryan

This presentation examines the psychological, behavioral, and physical problems associated with hunger based on a service-learning experience with Germantown HELP. In addition to demonstrating how -augments traditional instruction, it briefly addresses what steps are being taken to eliminate hunger within the United States.

Making a Difference With Service-learning

Students: Maria Aviles , Sonia Carrera, Rianne Thissen, Tatiana Vargas Saramiento, Tamiru Kirna, Hakima Ibrahim,Betel Sime, Armine Mirzoian, Tsering Sangmo

Sponsors: Professor Janet Miller, Professor Miriam Simon

Students in this American English Language Learning Community were required to participate in service-learning experiences. Their experiences gave them an opportunity to apply classroom lessons to life in the community around the College. In addition, they learned about United States culture in ways that could not be duplicated in the classroom. They have already made this presentation to the Montgomery College Board of Trustees. 

Germantown International Night

Students: Gabriel Spiro, Hummira Pasha, Zainab El Radi, Noor Farzana, Raissa Noubissie

Sponsor: Professor Debi Higbie-Holmes

Montgomery College enrolls students from over 160 nations. Since 2005, the Germantown Student Senate has sponsored an International Night show featuring song, dance, and a fashion walk to encourage students to share their native cultures. In addition to educating the campus and community, this activity allows students to participate in all phases of developing a major campus activity.

Astronomical StarryTelling Festival

Student: Elizabeth Wallace

Sponsor: Dr. Harold Williams

This presentation featured astronomical storytelling, which links astronomy, cosmology, and cultural connections through ancient stories about the universe. Stories also emphasize scientific concepts and multicultural perspectives.

Pineapple: The King of Fruit

Student: Michelle Young

Sponsor: Dr. Cyrus MacFoy

Each of Dr. MacFoy’s students must research and prepare a presentation on a plant from his or her native country. Michelle Young, who is from Antigua, chose to study the pineapple, one variety of which is the Antiguan national fruit. She will discuss the origin, history, cultivation, harvesting, pollination, uses, and properties of the pineapple.

We Learn, We Experience, We Create: How Students View Themselves and Others Through the Learning of Arabic

Students: Hideh Kalantary, Kenneth Mcfarlane, Mauricio San Miguel, Natalia Young

Sponsor: Professor Enas Elhanafi

This elementary Arabic class has included purposeful consideration of the cultures of Arabic-speaking countries. The reflective papers that make up this presentation trace students’ increasing awareness of these cultures and rejection of stereotypes.

The Secure Electronic Personal Health Record (e-PHR)

Student: Michelle Englemann

Sponsor: Professor S. Suzanne Meiskey

This presentation will examine health information products already in the market and the safety and security that various laws provide. It describes a product developed by the student which will allow health care consumers to carry their own health information safely and securely.

Historical Inaccuracy in Film

Student: Meg Lambert

Sponsor: Professor Vidya Vijayasek

Movies based on history are an important means of interpreting history to a mass audience, but the film industry takes numerous liberties by altering historical fact in the name of entertainment. When viewers are not aware of the historical fact, they may carry away from a movie erroneous ideas of the historical past. These ideas, in turn, may escalate in the direction of human rights violations

High Performance Computing on a Community College Campus

Student: Ahadu Tilahun

Sponsor: Dr. Harold Williams

High performance computing, a group of computers coupled together to function as a single computer, offers benefits in performance, availability, and cost-effectiveness over single computers. Working with high performance computing can also offer students experiences that they can draw on in the workforce. The software to effectively create a supercomputer on a community college campus is now available. This presentation will outline some of the benefits.

From a Poem to a Song: Inspired Lyrics

Student: Kipchumba Kitur

Sponsor: Professor Effie Siegel

This performance features a poem written as a response to a Langston Hughes’s poem. The presentation will also feature discussion of the creative process involved in composing the song.

Interning at the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress

Students: Raissa Noubissie, Ashley Byrd, Roxann Wellington

Sponsor: Professor Gail Youth

Montgomery College offers its students unparalleled opportunities to intern at the Smithsonian Institution and Library of Congress. In this presentation, three students who have completed internships will reflect on their experiences.

The Montgomery College Carbon Footprint Data Set

Student: Sarah Larsen

Sponsor: Professor Sara Ducey

The Facilities Office at Montgomery College is developing a data set to measure the carbon footprint of the college. This presentation will discuss the air travel carbon footprint of Montgomery College faculty and staff in their professional activities.

Communication Art Technology DVD

Students: Dorothy Mbori, Gregor Keitel, Jonathon Couts, Corey Wallace

Sponsor: Joanne Carl

Students in TR295 were required to work in teams to produce promotional DVDs—and what better to promote than the program in which they are enrolled. This team will display their DVD and discuss what they learned in an assignment designed to simulate business processes.

Heads Up DVD

Students: Bijana Milenkovic, Sam Soroka, Thomas DeVita, Joey Lefaro

Sponsor: Joanne Carl

As a class project, students worked with Heads Up, a non-profit organization that partners college students with elementary students to provide assistance in basic reading and math skills, to develop a DVD for promotional purposes. Students will discuss the process of creating the DVD and what the experience taught them.