Ivan Doig Center Hosts Research Presentations

In a return to in-person events, the Ivan Doig Center hosted “Research in the Year of Covid” on the afternoon of Wednesday, Feb. 2, in the Byker Auditorium. This presentation highlighted the graduate, postdoctoral and professional research completed in the past two years by recipients of research grants privately funded by Doig’s wife, Carol Doig. Doig was a journalist and writer, exploring the ranching and farming worlds of rural Montana and the West. 

The event began with the director of the Doig center, Mary Murphy, Ph.Dx, welcoming the audience and presenters back to the first in-person event hosted by the Doig Center since it stopped hosting lectures and research presentations in spring 2020 due to the rising concerns around COVID-19. The keynote speaker was Linda Karell, associate professor of English at MSU who received the 2021 Faculty Writing Award for her works. She mentioned that the money she received from the award allowed her to travel to Mexico last summer, to deeply focus on writing her upcoming memoir. Karell read through several pages from her current draft during the event. Between her raw bluntness of writing, use of curse words and general hilarity, the audience roared and laughed just as often as they were dead silent, hooked on Karell’s intense style of writing. 

Following Karell’s presentation, graduate and doctoral students each presented five minute reports on the research opportunities they were given with the award money, their research topic and future direction in a post-COVID world. Most students’ pre-COVID research track either shifted or was delayed due to pandemic restrictions, shutdowns and case outbreaks that affected historical archives across the country, including Montana. Nonetheless, each student expressed hope and excitement about continuing their research in either a post-pandemic or perpetual-pandemic world. 

The research topics of each student were fascinating, ranging from research on the shift in Indigenous food systems due to bison migration and eradication to studying the political, emotional, economic and social effects on Big Sky employees who commute to Big Sky every day from Bozeman. Each student appeared extremely passionate about their respective topics. Congratulations to all the 2020-2021 Ivan Doig Center Research Award recipients.