From urban turkeys to Miley Cyrus: MSUM, Concordia highlight student research
MOORHEAD—Classes were canceled Tuesday at Minnesota State University Moorhead, but Comstock Memorial Union was packed.
It was difficult to move through the crowds of students, many of whom were standing next to posters that reflected a year of research. Topics ranged from an anthropological study of electronic dance music in Fargo-Moorhead to a survey of area homeowners on their interactions with urban turkeys.
“The broadness of their interest is just breathtaking—and inspiring,” said Oscar Flores, a professor of economics and co-coordinator of MSUM’s Student Academic Conference.
MSUM and Concordia College both suspended classes one day this week—Tuesday at MSUM and Wednesday at Concordia—to highlight student research.
“For some of our students, this might be their first opportunity to take their research and scholarship outside of their class setting,” said Susan Larson, Concordia director of undergraduate research and scholarship.
True to its name, Concordia’s Celebration of Student Scholarship is a congratulatory event, meant to honor student accomplishments, but also provide upperclassmen with a professional experience and inspire younger students to follow their lead, Larson said.
At Concordia, the 190 projects by 331 students included a Freudian psychosexual analysis of Miley Cyrus’ career, proposed interventions for neglected tropical diseases and a look at human trafficking’s effect on Fargo-Moorhead.
“The diversity of the presentations has grown” since the event began as a poster session in 2004, Larson said. Eleven years later, there are also oral presentations, and this was the second year the college suspended classes so that more students could attend.
In its 17th year, the MSUM event featured about 400 students with 130 posters and 140 oral presentations, Flores said.
The university has canceled classes for the event for about the past decade—a decision that biosciences professor Ellen Brisch said was vital not only for attendance’s sake.
“It sends the message from the university that today is a really big deal and the focus of the day and the focus of the university’s work and the focus of the university’s mission is coming to hear our student researchers and support them,” she said.
For Brisch, who had students attending and participating, the event is more than a celebration. It’s part of the learning experience.
“Whether it’s biology, chemistry, whether it’s one of the social sciences, you have to communicate your findings,” she said. “You can do all the research you want, you can find out all the wonderful things, it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t communicate and share, so today is really the ultimate step in the whole process.”
“And in the end, when it’s done, it’s satisfying,” Flores said. “For the professors to see that students usually rise to levels that we didn’t always expect and for students to see that they are able to do things on their own.”
View the original article location here.