Research Conference provides students a venue to display work

Graham Clifford
The Signal
The 19th Annual Student Conference for Research and Creative Arts took place April 16-19 on the UHCL campus with participating students presenting professional-quality research in a variety of formats.

The SCRCA gathered students from 10 colleges in the state to present research topics in a professional manner and gain experience in presentation skills for future academic or business settings. Participants were required to have a UHCL faculty sponsor who is familiar with the student’s work.

“SCRCA provides [students] an exceptional opportunity to present professionally and get feedback on their research,” said Charlotte Haney, visiting lecturer in anthropology. “There are many publishing venues for student research. Investigate these, select an appropriate one, revise your research in light of the feedback you received and submit it for publication.”

The range of publishing venues offered to students included poster presentations, oral presentations, roundtable discussions and workshops. There was also a mock trial with a practicing judge for legal studies students to sharpen their courtroom skills.

Faculty members involved in the conference were quick to point out that although this conference is aimed at students, it is a professional conference where students present publishable quality work.

“The Student Conference for Research and Creative Arts was created to give students an opportunity to present their research in a professional environment outside the classroom,” said Stuart Larson, associate professor of graphic design. “Although the word ‘student’ is in the title, this is a real conference and counts as professional development on a resume. Presenting at this conference prepares a student for after-graduation in ways that classroom activities do not.”

The presentations and symposiums are intended to not only prepare students for a possible business setting, but also to prepare them for future academic pursuits.

“This track record of publication builds your C.V. and gives you a leg up on the competition for graduate school applications or on the job market,” Haney said.

Students participating in the poster presentation displayed their research in Atrium II of the Bayou Building. Their work ranged from “Gun Control: In Response to Sandy Hook Elementary,” to “Comparison of Zooplankton at Sites Along the Rio Negro (Amazonas Brazil).”

One poster titled “Digging Deeper: The Dichotomy Between Social Media Use and Personality Traits” displayed a large amount of information in the form of text and graphs that showed a sample collected on campus.

“The hardest part of preparing my poster was streamlining the data and information into a summarized format and making sure there were no errors,” said Brittany Davis, clinical psychology major and one of the authors of “Digging Deeper.”  “This was especially important because the final poster cost a significant amount of money to print.”

Student posters are only one of the forums for presenting research, however, and many students presented a topic in a symposium setting where a sponsoring faculty member chose the topic.

One of these symposiums was co-conducted by Sera Perkins, humanities major, and covered “American Eating Rituals.”

“Preparing for this conference has made me feel more ready to make a presentation in a future business setting,” Perkins said. “It took several weeks to prepare for this.”

For more information or to inquire about next year’s conference, contact the Student Conference at 281-283-3374 or email studentconf@uhcl.edu.

“For next year, our 20th anniversary, we will be bringing back past presenters who have done something significant in their field,” said Michael Hunt, SCRCA director and instructor in psychology. “A lot of people think of SCRCA as only a research conference, when it really is a conference of all scholastic work.”

Photos and slideshow by Dave Valdez: The Signal.