To say Ann O’Connor is just a busy woman would be an understatement. The graduate research assistant is a single mother of two students at Southeastern, a published author on Arabic culture, member of the library board and recipient of numerous awards. She has added one more item to her list of achievements when she became the recipient the prestigious U.S. Marine Corps Fellowship research grant.

“When you have a passion for it, it becomes second nature,” said O’Connor.

O’Connor applied for the fellowship after receiving an e-mail about the program.

“It just seemed like good idea,” said O’Connor. “It sounded interesting, and I am comfortable with it. It’s all about communication and how people perceive messages.”

She has already conducted about a year’s worth of research on her topic, violent video gaming its effects on those who assimilate into the armed forces, when she submitted her proposal.

O’Connor moved to the Saudi Arabia, with her husband at the time, in 1996. She spent the majority of the following 10 years there, four of which as the director of a small, 150-bed hospital.

“From the time I spent there, I learned a lot about the culture,” said O’Connor.

To her, many of the mainstream marketed videos games do not portray the accuracy of warfare.

“There is such a disconnect between the games and a real-life scenario,” said O’Connor. “The games are all about ‘Shoot first, ask questions later.’ That is not real life. It’s misleading.”

Though she has yet to conclude her research, she has already found correlations between studies.

“The study could reveal that there is no effect, but I think that there is,” said O’Connor. “Video games amongst adolescents definitely have an effect, a negative effect. It promotes aggressiveness and limits interaction.”

On the market, there are currently games that feature a Middle Eastern landscape, with those characters wearing the traditional dress being portrayed as the enemy.

“It’s not a fair representation of their society or culture,” said O’Connor. “There is a big misinterpretation between truth and perception, and that fuels a stereotype of a people.”

Consequently, some video games have been designed and are employed by the military to be used as strategy games for troop training. The games are used to save money and simulate potential situations that troops may encounter on the field.

But as to the mass marketed warfare simulation games available for retail, O’Connor does not believe they are a realistic medium when it comes to the technicalities of warfare.

Though she feels there are negatives effects to video gaming, O’Connor cannot say what the results of her research will yield. Yet she still thinks that this popular medium could be used in a positive way to educate the masses about culture.

“I think that you could use video gaming to teach cultural understanding as well as incorporate it into the game,” said O’Connor.

The U.S. Marine Corps Fellowship is awarded once a year to a few selected graduate students who will use the fellowship to base their research on a Marine Corps related subject. Applicants select their own topic of study and can receive a grant of anywhere from $400 to $3,000.

O’Connor, who received her bachelor’s in organizational communication from Southeastern, projects that she will conclude her research by December.

“I just hope that they take it and they are able to use the results,” said O’Connor. “I’ve been polished by the best, and it just goes to show that Southeastern is not only diverse but they are thinking beyond campus and looking at the global perspective.”

O’Connor believes that despite the necessity of warfare and the misrepresentation of it in society, there is still the capacity for peace.

 “Peace is tolerance, understanding and love,” said O’Connor. “You have that, you have peace.”