I'm using the user response to a date prompt in a variable, but want to see it just as the date, without the time. How can I do this?

You need to combine a couple variable functions – FormatDate and ToDate -- to get the date format you want, as follows:

= FormatDate(ToDate(UserResponse([Query 1];"Enter Start Date (PER):");"");"MM/dd/yyyy")

(Note that, in this example, the prompt reads "Enter Start Date (PER)" and there's only one query involved. You'll likely need to adjust your query name and prompt wording to reflect your own query.)