On April 14, the College will kick off its fifth annual Spring Student Symposium. This year, 268 students from all classes will present their work across 24 disciplines.
Led by the Center for Teaching, Learning and Research (CTLR), this year’s symposium will be even larger than previous years. The events will open Thursday evening at 7 p.m at the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts with a keynote address by Brad Corrigan ’96, followed by various arts presentations.
“[The evening] will be like a festival of the arts,” said Kathy Skubikowski, director of the CTLR and co-chair of the 2011 Spring Student Symposium Committee.
Following the arts presentations Corrigan, a founding member of the band Dispatch, which was founded at the College in 1996, will give a special performance. The concert will, which will last roughly 45 minutes, will start at 10:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
On April 15, the symposium will move to McCardell Bicentennial Hall and Johnson Memorial Building for the other student presentations.
“[At the symposium] students from all disciplines come together [to showcase their work],” said Yonna McShane, director of learning resources, lecturer in psychology and member of the symposium committee.
The range of topics and the enthusiasm present throughout the community is “stunning,” added McShane.
This year’s presentations will showcase work across various disciplines, including one presentation on “Evaluating the Performance of Multiple Model Estimation Algorithms” and another on “Vincent A. Jones IV: A Sociological Analysis of the Matrix of Domination on Middlebury’s Campus.”
Carla Cevasco ’11, who will be presenting her senior English and American Literatures thesis, “From ‘It-girl’ to Forgotten Poet: A Cultural Reading on Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Reputation,” also helped organize this year’s event as the symposium’s project manager in addition to her work on her presentation.
While this will not be her first time presenting at the Symposium, Cevasco said, “This is my first time actually working for the symposium so it’s been fun to see how the event is put together.”
The organizers of the symposium have been working since early September and they are excited for the event to take place.
“I don't know much about the classes my friends are taking on a daily basis, but the symposium is a chance to see what everyone's been up to this year,” said Cevasco. “It’s like a buffet; I'm going to go see presentations and posters on Chesapeake Bay children's literature, medieval punctuation, honor killings in Turkey, neurotransmitters and [more].”
“For presenters, the symposium lets you present on subjects you care about to a cheering section of your friends and faculty, plus probably quite a few people you don't know,” Cevasco added. “That's what makes the Middlebury symposium so unique — where else can you do something like this as an undergraduate?”
Both Skubikowski and McShane share Cevasco’s enthusiasm for the possibilities that can come from the symposium, for both presenters and audience members alike.
Skubikowski hopes that students will be inspired by the work that their peers have completed. In addition, she hopes that attending the symposium will get other students excited about the potential to present at next year’s symposium.
“I’m excited for that general buzz [present at the Symposium],” Skubikowski said. “This is a moment where the student is the expert.”
“[The Symposium] is wonderful modeling for students,” added McShane. “It allows students presenting to feel like they are moving towards a professional setting.”
In preparation for event, Skubikowski and McShane encourage students who are presenting to send out some form of communication to fellow students, professors, deans and anyone else who is important to them to tell them where and when they will be presenting.
Cevasco also encourages member of the College community to attend the symposium.
“Don't just sleep in on your day off from classes — you'll miss out,” she said.
Student research symposium opens
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