Radford students tackle ‘wicked’ problems

When preparing students for the bi-annual Wicked Festival, Tay Keong Tan makes certain his students “present their research like professionals.”  

Tan confesses he doesn’t know everything about all of the world’s wicked problems – like cryptocurrency and other dilemmas that seemingly have no solutions – “but it is my job to teach my students, facilitate their problem-solving and prepare them for their poster presentations,” said Radford University’s director of international studies and professor of political science. “I want to make sure their posters are flawless – without mistakes – and all their I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed.”

Each spring and fall semester, Radford University’s College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences hosts the popular Wicked Festival with the purpose of giving undergraduate students, from freshmen to seniors, the tools and resources needed to become experts and problem-solvers for complex, persistent and “wicked” public issues. The Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL), Citizen Leader and the Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (OURS) also support the festival.

Two hundred and fifty students participated in the most recent Wicked Festival, held on April 11, on two levels of the university’s Kyle Hall. In two evening sessions, students showed their work through elaborate posters while also engaging in conversations about their extensive research with fellow students, faculty, university administrators and others who walked through the event.

Zora Comer presented at the festival for a third time during her academic career at Radford.

“I love the festival,” said the senior political science major from Halifax, Virginia. “It’s so great to give students an opportunity to pick a topic that interests them and then do their own deep dive into research and look for solutions.”

Students enter the Wicked Festival through their enrollment in a network of various “wicked” courses at Radford. Comer’s topic, “Advancing AI and the Displacement of Workers and Job Loss,” was born and developed in an international studies capstone course that Tan teaches, Seminar on Sustainable Development.

Typically, students pick a topic from a list provided by their faculty. Then, the semester-long research begins. Students often are required to write a paper on their topic and design a poster to present at the festival.

Paige Olsen and Lauren Davis worked together on a project exploring mental health concerns among athletes. Each wrote a three-page paper on the topic. They both examined “where the problems develop, how to fix the problems, how to implement solutions in real life and then team up with organizations that can help,” explained Olsen, a sophomore from Roanoke, Virginia, who majors in psychology and plays on the Highlanders’ women’s soccer team.

Olsen and Davis, a member of the women’s lacrosse team from Kingston, New York, pooled their sources and information to develop a poster that they polished numerous times, thanks to feedback from Tan and classmates in a seminar on Demystifying Leadership, until it was festival-ready.

Picking the topic came naturally for the two athletes, said Olsen, a junior business management and marketing major. “It was easy for me to talk about how athletes are often afraid to speak up. We deal with a lot of pressure – in athletics and academics – and we go through injuries and exhaustion and burnout,” she said. “Those are things we’ve both dealt with.”

Solutions for mental health issues – “for athletes and everyone,” Davis said, are a perfect example of a wicked problem. Doing the project was worth it, she said, “if one person walks by, and even if they don’t talk to us about it, they can know that mental health is something that can be talked about.”

The festival is a product of Radford’s Wicked Problems Initiative, which is based on decades of research aimed toward engaging students in research that will develop their problem-solving skills as they examine some of the world’s most complex problems.

After all the work, “I feel like I’m more able to build a solution right,” Comer said “Participating really does help us strengthen our problem-solving skills.”

Max Corollo is another Wicked Festival veteran. His presentation on cryptocurrency was the second time the senior political science major from Loudoun County, Virginia, had participated, and “it was an awesome experience,” he said, “to take a project from the start and really immerse yourself into it. It’s been a great learning experience.”

Those words are exactly what Tan and other Wicked Festival organizers want to hear from their students.

“That in itself is learning,” the professor said.

Students in Political Science Professor Paige Tan’s careers course helped organize and work the festival, as they typically do, to make certain it all ran smoothly. They had another job on their list of to-dos this year: find a guest speaker. After much thought, they invited City of Radford Mayor David Horton ’90 to speak about the ways he handles wicked issues in his leadership position.

“One wicked problem in Radford is cultivating a robust, sustainable economy while preserving the environment and enhancing the quality of life,” the mayor said. “We are working every day to attract 21st-century jobs and elements that help people want to spend an hour, a day, a week, a month, and a lifetime in our fair city enjoying the beauty of the New River Valley and all that we have here. Radford is a special place, and the more folks who know about us and experience what we have here, the better.”

“Our students had many challenging questions for him in the Q&A after his remarks,” Paige Tan said.

One of the great rewards to students for their intense work for the festival is the opportunity to win an award at the end of the night. As usual, honors were given for outstanding presentation, distinguished research and impactful solution. A new Rising Star Rookies category was added this spring, designed for students participating in the festival via 100-level courses.

The spring 2024 Wicked Festival awards winners are:

Rising Star Rookies

Gold – Finding the Balance: Sustainability vs. Mass Production of Cereal Crops as Biofuels by Danielle Cook, Natalie Jimenez, Allison Owens, Ava Tuell. (Biology 112. Faculty: Christine Small and Amanda Raimer)

Silver – Reshaping Congress by Evan Harless, Christian Housh, Sarah Showalter (Political Science 111. Faculty: Allyson Yankle)

Bronze – Automatic Registration in the U.S. by Thea Bayse, Za’vionna Green, A’mya Holland (Political Science 111. Faculty: Allyson Yankle)

Outstanding Presentation

Gold – Humanitarian Aid in Ukraine by Becca Holcombe and Riley Petroski (Political Science 354. Faculty: Paige Tan)

Silver – Eyewitness Testimony; Testing Memory by EJ Auvil (Philosophy 115. Faculty: Katy Shepard)

Bronze –Emerging Impact of Space Tourism by Sydney Brummitt and Sam Morgan (Political Science 490. Faculty: Tay Keong Tan)

Distinguished Research

Gold – Rise of White Nationalism by I’yonah Cartwright (Political Science 490. Faculty: Tay Keong Tan)

Silver – Solar Eruptions by Brandon Englen and Samantha McKnight (Political Science 410. Faculty: Tay Keong Tan)

Bronze – Self-Driving Cars by Emma Smith, Zach Hupman, Marcayla McWhorter, Bianca Eze (English 112. Faculty: Laurie Cubbison)

Impactful Solution

Gold – Killer Asteroids Earthbound by Kaylee Tieche and Merca Shelton Political Science 410. Faculty: Tay Keong Tan)

Silver – Transnational Repression by Caroline Sapp (Political Science 490. Faculty: Tay Keong Tan)