demonstrated information literacy by truly examining the sources by which we as a class would use to understand Anne Moody’s Mississippi. We collected a variety of sources ranging from scholarly research to real-life encounters we had during our study away trip. Individually we selected topics to study further citing sources from our trip, the pre-work we did before leaving for our trip and online research once we returned to Mankato. I wanted to gain a better understanding of the civil rights movements relationship with women and how women fit within it. I used sources from interviews we held during our trip, Anne Moody’s Book and scholarly articles I found online. This experience demonstrates an understating of information literacy because I developed my ability to know where to look in both physical location as well as within an assortment of texts.

          Combining multiple perspectives effectively showcases a broad understanding of a given topic. Social Entrepreneurship is a highly-debated field with opposing views represent in the business and nonprofit sector. As my final research paper in my Advanced Workshops in Nonprofit Leadership course, I wrote an essay considering social enterprises and where they lie on the spectrum of businesses and nonprofits. To do so, I incorporated several viewpoints on the relationship between social enterprises, businesses and nonprofits. From this research, I came to the realization social enterprises aren’t just businesses with a social mission nor are they nonprofits earning a profit, rather they are a true hybrid of the two shown in many different forms. Similarly, during my Feminist Thought course, we were assigned the task of fostering a vision that would further on of the feminist theories we discussed in class. The topic my group chose was sexual education. Individually we had to find multiple sources relating to our vision and then as a group we created a large annotated biography including all the sources we found. Each member of my group took on the task of synthesizing their own sources before working together to integrate all of the materials we had found.

          The vision I had from my Feminist Thought class developed into the original research I would later conduct in my Feminist Research and Action class. My research partner and I developed a research question that was further analyzed by holding focus groups on campus in addition to distributing surveys. The title of our research paper is: Mommy Motives: On the Intersections of Motherhood and Sexual and Reproductive Education. Including the lived experiences of individuals is keystone within the field of Gender and Women’s studies which is what lead us to those methods. We received IRB approval for our research the following summer. Now that our research is complete, I intend to present our research this Spring at the Upper Midwest Honors Conference.

                The honors program has provided me with a nuanced perspective of what research is and who can conduct it. As a social scientist, my research often takes place outside of a lab, this doesn’t not add or subtract anything from its validity. By comprehending the elements of research, it was easier to identify my personal research experiences.