Student Academic Conference and Fall Semester Courses – New two stage application process
Because of the new Minnesota Conference of Undergraduate Scholarly and Creative Activity (MNCUSCA) and the special constraints that it places on the application process, there will be a two-stage application window for the Student Academic Conference. The early window is only for those students wishing to be considered for MNCUSCA. Because a large number of MNCUSCA projects were multi-semester projects, this early deadline for those projects makes sense and allows departments more time to select top projects. Additionally, separating these applications off allows a later deadline for other projects, particularly spring semester class projects that may not have been finalized until the middle of the spring semester.
If you work with students during fall semester who are completing excellent scholarly or creative work, please encourage them to apply for this selective conference and consider putting this suggestion in your syllabus. The details on MNCUSCA are not finalized but are coming into focus (April 8th or 22nd, and this year we are probably going down on Sunday and spending the night in Mankato), but we again plan to take the top projects from each department, as ranked by their department. Please stay tuned for updates.