revamped format to include students from more disciplines. The new
format was explained Wednesday in Westlake Hall. Photo by Anna Foley.
The Student Scholarship Expo kicked off in a new direction in Westlake Hall Wednesday. The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs gave a brief presentation about the changes and goals for the upcoming expo in the spring.
“Last year, about 80 percent of participants were in science-heavy disciplines,” Executive Director of Research and Sponsored Programs Sandra Shumaker said. “This year, we’re working very hard to make the expo open and accessible to all disciplines. We want to make room for everybody so that they can present the way they would in their own field.”
The expo is a “hallmark Bradley event” that takes place every spring semester during national undergraduate research week, according to Shumaker. Students present displays and give five-minute presentations about the research, scholarship and creative work they’ve been conducting.
“We did a poster for a psychology lab and we were judged with all the hard sciences,” Tessa Camp, a sophomore psychology and social work double major, said. “This was tough because all the other projects had way more impressive titles than ours because they’re from a different discipline, even though we’re both based in science.”
Shumaker said they’ve made efforts to address this issue.
“We have a more diversified expo advisory board,” graduate assistant Luke Barton said. “What this means is that we’ll have a much wider array of judges from all disciplines. This is because last expo we had judges evaluating presentations in fields they had little knowledge of, and we want to avoid that this year.”
According to Shumaker, the judges include Bradley faculty members, professionals from local businesses and faculty from other institutions who are recognized experts in their disciplines. She said this year, they’re hoping to triple from last year the number of judges they draw from outside the university.
A larger pool of judges isn’t the only big change for the expo.
“A really cool thing we’re doing this year is dynamic display options,” Barton said. “We’ll have electricity for all the tables, so you’ll be able to play music if you’re in fine arts or present a video of a play if you’re in theater. This is supposed to help accommodate disciplines that don’t traditionally showcase their work through poster boards.”
Shumaker said she hopes these changes will make the expo a stronger and more positive student experience.
“We’re open to ideas and suggestions,” Shumaker said. “We encourage students to contact us because we do listen. In fact, a lot of the changes this year are the result of student feedback.”
For more information, students can contact Shumaker at sshumaker@fsmail.bradley.edu or visit bradley.edu/academic/cio/ctel/expo.
Registration for the expo opens Jan. 20 and ends March 11.
