April 23, 2009

Inaugural 'Poster Symposium For Undergraduate Research & Creativity' is a success

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By Mike Porter


Jacqueline Smith-Mason, Ph.D., “Our undergraduates are doing a fabulous job and this is really an event to showcase the research that they are doing.”

Visitors to Virginia Commonwealth University’s first campus-wide “Poster Symposium For Undergraduate Research & Creativity” were introduced to research into the role of women in politics, how tic tac toe can measure working memory and how Europe’s Black Plague impacted the medieval mind. 

And that barely scratched the surface of the variety of research provided by 68 undergraduate students, representing fields of study on both campuses.

Research was displayed by students majoring in psychology, biology, bioinformatics, chemistry, exercise science, forensic science, biomedical engineering, social work, political science, criminal justice, business and art. Of the 68 abstracts, 14 were be presented by freshmen, nine by sophomores, 15 by juniors and 30 by seniors.

VCU’s first “Poster Symposium For Undergraduate Research & Creativity” brought out a steady crowd to look over the research projects and ask questions of the students who conducted the research. Photo by Mike Porter, VCU Communications and Public Relations.
VCU’s first “Poster Symposium For Undergraduate Research & Creativity” brought out a steady crowd to look over the research projects and ask questions of the students who conducted the research. Photo by Mike Porter, VCU Communications and Public Relations.

“It was our first one and I didn’t know what to expect. It exceeded my expectations,” said Jacqueline Smith-Mason, Ph.D., assistant dean and director of undergraduate research at the Virginia Commonwealth University Honors College. 

Smith-Mason is a member of the Advisory Committee for Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship created last year under the direction of Provost Stephen D. Gottfredson, Ph.D., and Francis L. Macrina, Ph.D., vice president for research. The symposium is one of the first initiatives put forth by the advisory committee. 

Participants were selected from a pool of students who submitted abstracts explaining their research, documenting its progress and providing context for their creative work. 

Ranya Abi-Falah explains her research on the Black Plague to a visitor of the poster symposium. Photo by Mike Porter, VCU Communications and Public Relations.
Ranya Abi-Falah explains her research on the Black Plague to a visitor of the poster symposium. Photo by Mike Porter, VCU Communications and Public Relations.

The first undergraduate poster symposium was held on April 22, 2009. For two hours, student researchers showed off their projects and answered questions from a steady crowd that filed through the rows of posters.

The Multimedia Art Advocacy – “aMUSEment” project, in which student researchers turned a sculpture into a musical instrument, was a symposium crowd-pleaser.

“Turnout was fantastic,” Smith-Mason said. “Not only did we highlight the research being done by our undergraduate students, but we also featured the contributions of their faculty mentors. And I’m sure we sparked some new ideas for future research and creative scholarship in the students who visited.”

It’s a sculpture. It’s a musical instrument. And it’s a crowd-pleaser! Students who created The Multimedia Art Advocacy – “aMUSEment” research project perform for the crowd. Photo by Mike Porter, VCU Communications and Public Relations.
It’s a sculpture. It’s a musical instrument. And it’s a crowd-pleaser! Students who created The Multimedia Art Advocacy – “aMUSEment” research project perform for the crowd. Photo by Mike Porter, VCU Communications and Public Relations.

VCU is an institutional member of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), which represents more than 900 colleges and universities. The council was founded in 1978 and is dedicated to promoting high-quality, undergraduate, student-faculty collaborative research and scholarship.

“We are committed to making undergraduate research a priority at VCU and to do that successfully, we need to make it visible. The poster symposium is an important step in accomplishing that,” Smith-Mason said.  We are already planning for next year, which we think will be even bigger and better with more student involvement,” Smith-Mason said.