Bria McKamey
Staff Writer
For the past three years, Bryan’s Undergraduate Research Conference has been a gathering place for students to showcase their knowledge.
This year’s conference will be held on Friday, Mar. 28 on the second floor of the Library.
Students are required to submit an abstract of approximately 250 words. A panel of faculty members will then evaluate the abstracts to decide on the participants. Once accepted, students will give 12 minute presentations on their chosen topics with an additional three minutes set aside for a Q&A session.
Both Dr. Salvatore Musumeci, assistant professor of European history and Italian culture, and Dr. Brian Eisenback, associate professor of biology, have helped organize past conferences and have helped with workshops sponsored by the Bryan Center for Undergraduate Research.
“The projects are judged by an interdisciplinary panel of faculty members. Once the conference is done, this group of individuals gets together to discuss each project and ranks them with regard to their quality,” said Musumeci.
The conference offers a chance for students from different fields to hear what their comrades are studying.
“This is an avenue by which you guys can come out and present what you’re doing and what your passions are to the larger student body. It’s kind of cool seeing your friends expressing a passionate part of their education and hearing the level of comprehension, knowledge and expertise that they’ve been able to accumulate in a relatively short amount of time. That’s fun,” said Eisenback.
The topics are both numerous and broad, ranging from biology to Bible. Senior Allison Baker has participated in the conference for the past two years. The first paper she submitted came in second place. For her, the conference was an opportunity to research something that she was really interested in learning more about, “specifically feminine sexuality in the church and how it is presented to young women in particular.”
“I think what the Undergraduate Research Conference does well is that it encourages people to view learning as part of a lifestyle rather than just a classroom. The people that run it encourage you and are there for you every step of the way. It holds you accountable because you’re presenting to faculty, which is a little intimidating, but they’re so gracious about it,” said Baker.
Dr. Eisenback agrees that presenting to faculty members can be intimidating but urges students to participate because the faculty are eager to help.
“Once they [the students] start asking questions about the world and formulating their own interpretations of the world around them, it can be a very exciting and invigorating process. It can be very rewarding,” said Eisenback.
The speaker for this year’s conference will be Dr. Samuel Joeckel, associate professor of English at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Fla.
