On Wednesday, Dr. Stephenson and I met with staff members from the offices of Senator Hutchison and Representative Naugeb
auer to talk about the importance of undergraduate research. We also took a picture with Rep. Naugebauer and were able to set up an appointment for coffee with Sen. Hutchison on Thursday morning.
I presented my poster on the use and misuse of literally at the Arts & Humanities luncheon, and the Council on Undergraduate Reasearch videotaped my explanation of the project for their publicity materials. Four students with separate projects focusing on the preservation of historical documents were chosen to present their research as part of a panel during the luncheon, and Dr. John Churchill gave a rousing speech about the importance of humanities for our education system and our nation as a whole.
While I had a great time talking about my project to those who walked by, I also enjoyed hearing about the reasearch other students had done. Kendra Van Nyhuis, who set up her poster next to mine, had created a simple, yet comprehensive guide to help a local museum catalog various types of Asian bamboo flutes. Sada Hotovy, whom I had met the day before during the student field trip, worked on the transcription and annotation of poet Carl Sandburg’s notebooks, which up until now have only been seen by a handful of researchers. Another student I met on the filed trip, Mary Caulfield, presented on her work with ancient Latin translations of the writings of Josephus. She was great to have on the field trip to the Folger Shakespeare Library because she was able to translate portions of the Latin text of the Nuremberg Chronicle for the rest of us! We had a wonderful conversations about our projects last night, and she was delighted to find that I knew who Josephus was and understood a little about textual criticism.
Conferences like this are a great opportunity to share your research with an interested audience and meet other students who share your passion for knowledge. This has been a rich experience so far, and I hope that more ACU students will submit their projects to Posters on the Hill and similar academic events in the future.
