Spirit Squad
Get your FREE Virginia Wesleyan decal.
PEIC
Learn about campus greening initiative.
See Also:
by Susie Shupert '06
As Virginia Wesleyan College is on the pathway to becoming a Phi Beta Kappa college, the College is holding an event for the first time to reward and celebrate the academic achievements of its students. The event is the 2006 Research Symposium, which allows students from a variety of academic departments to share and display their research projects.
"The Research Symposium is a new tradition at VWC that is dedicated to academic excellence and providing VWC students with experiences that will make them competitive both in the professional world and in graduate school," says Assistant Professor of History Sara Sewell. "Our aim is to offer students the opportunity to conduct research as well as present their research in a professional environment. The Research Symposium is especially important for underclassmen because it provides them with the opportunity to learn about conducting research from students who have already done research."
The Symposium will commence with "Celebrating Student Research: Explorations of the Natural World," the kick-off event featuring presentations from the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 19 in the Pearce Hospitality Suite in the Batten Center. The Symposium will run through Friday, April 28 and will feature a number of presentations in a variety of academic disciplines. Different lectures will be given throughout the week on topics in many of the different departments at the College including history, political science, business, humanities, natural sciences and psychology. Fifty students representing ten departments are involved in the Research Symposium.
»See the week's schedule. »See the list of student projects.
Senior Christina Irby, an Interdisciplinary major studying Elementary Education, conducted her research for a class in her major. The title of her project is "The Reasons for the Reduction of Recess Time in Primary Education and the Subsequent Effects on Students."
"My research is finding the reasons why recess is taken away, basically trying to find the root of the issue while also finding the positive effects of recess," Irby said. "I don't even have kids and I find this interesting so I think parents would, too."
Sophomore Jessie Dawe, who is majoring in English, Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies, has combined her knowledge in these three disciplines to create her research project. Her project title is "LGBT Equal Rights Advocacy at the International Level: Successes, Obstacles, and Proposal for Improved Advancement."
"This project focuses on the advancement of equal rights for the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender] community at the international level, as well as the ways in which international successes and shortcomings affect the LGBT community on a national level," Dawe said.
This is the first year that students have the opportunity to share their research projects with the College community. It will also give underclassmen the opportunity to learn what is expected in terms of conducting research and the types of research they can conduct.
"Starting a new tradition is always challenging. In particular, many people in the VWC community didn't always understand what we were trying to achieve or the processes involved," said Sewell. "We've learned a lot about process and communication from this event."
The hope is that there will be more departments and more students represented in the Research Symposium in future years as it becomes more established.
"In conjunction with this new initiative, we are offering grants to students, both to fund their research and to present their research at off-campus venues," said Sewell. "We are hoping that this funding will increase in the coming years."