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11 FALL 2019 11 from state to state. For example, in Oregon, recruits can take the test an unlimited number of times and have up to 18 months to pass. But in New Jersey, if a recruit fails the test, they must retake it within three weeks, and after that, a second fail means they fail out of the academy. "You see how hard it can be for a New Jersey woman, and it just seems unfair that in Oregon you can pass it, but here you can't," says Daryl Hoehne '20. They shared their findings with Ford and received credit in the story published first in the Press in August and then in USA Today, the flagship of the Gannett chain that owns the Press. That has since spurred New Jersey officials to take another look at the state's fitness standards. Says Mazeika, "It's particu- larly rewarding because the work actually appears to be affecting policy, which is different from a lot of academic work." ■ —Kevin Coyne IF YOU BOMBED your fitness test to become a cop, how soon would you be ready for a retest? That's a harder question than it seems, as four criminology students discovered when they started their research last spring, and the answers they found were newsworthy enough to land on the front page of USA Today. The project started after David Mazeika, a criminology professor, invited Asbury Park Press reporter Andrew Ford to speak to students about a Press investigation into police misconduct in New Jersey. Ford said he next wanted to look into fitness tests for New Jersey police recruits because after a rule change shortening the amount of time to prepare for retests, female recruits were failing the test at an alarmingly higher rate than before. What were the fitness standards in other states? The students started collecting data from across the nation. They found the tasks, as well as the time allowed to pass them, varied wildly Epic fail A national review of fitness standards for police recruits shows New Jersey women face uncommon obstacles. Self-care for plants Ixnay on the watering can. The Interactive Multimedia crew keeps plants alive — without lifting a finger. WHEN STUDENTS in Christopher Ault's "Designing Creative Spaces" class toured some top design firms, including Brooklyn's Etsy, they noticed a common office feature: plants. They returned to campus yearning for green in the U-Lab — the IMM department's collaborative and social work space. Well aware of their IMM profes- sors' black thumbs, the students proposed self-watering plants. That led to a mini-course masterminded by Ault and John Kuiphoff '04, to teach students how to attach sensors and microcontrollers to the plants. In turn, the students placed moisture sensors in the soil, which activated a water pump when the soil became dry. More creative scenarios are up next: plants get watered only when it is raining outside, or plants get rigged with timers and voices from MP3 players to speak to an Amazon Echo to control lighting. Kuiphoff admits it would be easier to simply remember to water the plants every few days. Says Kuiphoff, "But then it wouldn't be an interactive multimedia project." ■ —Kara Pothier The answers [students] found were newsworthy enough to land on the front page of USA Today.

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