Ohio University Southern will be sending one of its own to Harvard this weekend. The school won't be losing him to the Ivy League, but rather attempting to spread the message that OUS is an academic force to be reckoned with.

Dr. David Lucas will catch a plane to Boston this Thursday, where he will present a speech to the Harvard Faculty Club.

Lucas will be speaking about a method of research he identified called folknography, which researchers may use to allow a certain group of people to tell their own story, instead of relying on facts and figures.

"It's designed specifically for targeting a group of folk anywhere, and then asking them a series of questions about the thing that you want to find out about," Lucas said.

In addition to the Appalachian region, Lucas has used folknography in the Dominican Republic and Mexico.

The method has caught on across the globe, being practiced in Australia and England, where Harvard faculty caught wind of it, and requested a formal presentation on the method from Lucas.

"I'm very excited, because I know that this is the moment when, as a representative of the Southern campus, that we're going to demonstrate to the academic world that we're doing research that meets the standards of all of academia," Lucas said. "Ohio University is a world-class university, and we've got world-class things to offer."

Though the siren song of the Ivy League may be tempting, Lucas is quite sure he'll be able to resist leaving Ironton for the hallowed halls of Harvard.

"No way!" Lucas said with a laugh. "I'm having way too much fun here. No, that's not going to happen, not in the cards."

After he returns, Lucas will begin a new folknography study looking at Porter Gap Road in Ironton as a microcosm of Appalachia.