Every year since 1999, the Stetson University Showcase has highlighted undergraduate research and creative projects representing the academic disciplines across the DeLand campus. Showcase 2013 will be held as an all-day campus-wide event from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday, April 16. Classes will be cancelled Tuesday, enabling students and faculty to attend the symposium uninterrupted. All events are open to the public, including all student presentations, the Stetson Women’s Chorale and Stetson Men’s concert, the Digital Media Festival and the keynote lecture at the end of the day.

Stetson’s academic symposium was formerly known as SURCAS, standing for Senior Undergraduate Research and Creative Arts Symposium. Currently, Showcase is open to all class years, not just seniors. Participating students compete for research awards that include a cash prize.

Approximately 150 Stetson undergraduates will participate, presenting their research papers, research posters and art portfolios, including the 3-dimensional design (right), presented in last year’s Showcase. They will make oral presentations, perform and give power-point presentations in seven venues on the DeLand campus. The students will present their programs in professional settings for audiences that include judges, faculty, fellow students and interested members of the wider community.

All students in the College of Arts & Sciences at Stetson complete an intensive research project, and students in the School of Music perform recitals. The projects give Stetson students an advantage for graduate school admission and can be cited on students’ resumes. Many of the research projects are cross-disciplinary – tying together a student’s interests in two or three academic areas. Some of them relate to a student’s personal interests.

Following the day full of presentations, Dr. Herb Childress, Dean of Research and Assessment at the Boston Architectural College, will deliver the keynote lecture at 6:15 p.m. in the Stetson Room, second floor of the Carlton Union Building, 131 E. Minnesota Ave. Awards for the best work in each category of presentation will be presented to the students at this special occasion. The public is invited to attend, free of charge.

Stetson’s 2013 Showcase also includes the Digital Media Festival (DMF) beginning at 4 p.m. at the Hand Art Center, at then at 7:30 p.m. at the Athens Theater, located at 124 N. Florida Ave., in downtown DeLand. The public is invited to attend, free of charge.

At 4 p.m., at Hand Art Center, there will be a video screening of all 20 selected video entries and 10 top audio works created by Stetson students. Attendees are invited to vote on their favorite Audience Choice award.

Beginning at 7:30 p.m., the DMF and Touchstone (Stetson’s literary magazine) awards ceremony will be held at the Athens. The first, second and third place video and audio works will be screened, and the audience choice awards will be announced in three categories: video, sound and interactive.

The School of Music concert featuring the Stetson Women’s Chorale, Andrew Larson, conductor, and Stetson Men, Timothy Peter, conductor,   will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Lee Chapel inside Elizabeth Hall, 421 N. Woodland Blvd. General Admission is $10; senior admission is $8; and area students $5. Admission is free to all Stetson faculty, students and staff, with ID.

“Stetson’s Showcase enjoys a national reputation as one of a handful of university Scholarship days that goes beyond simply the Honors Students, the science majors and the poster halls,” said Showcase Director Kimberly Reiter, associate professor of history at Stetson. “Our inclusion of all schools and students of all levels, as well as oral presentations, performances, film and art exhibitions give us a distinction as one of the premier schools in the country for undergraduate research opportunities.”

Just some of the research titles for this year’s Showcase Undergraduate Research Symposium include:

• Sounding the Mind: Musical Expertise Lessens Context Effects on Line Bisection Errors
• The Periodic Pyramid of the Elements
• Creating Humor Through Rhetoric: An Analysis of The Colbert Report
• Technology, Freedom and Revolution: An Ideological Criticism of the Unabomber’s Manifesto
• Race Trumps Class in Harry Potter and The Hunger Games
• Is it contagious? Positive Influence and Social Responsibility in Interactional Communication
• The Audition Process: An Inside Look At The Southeastern Theatre Conference.

“Showcase is a day for finding out just why your friends have been muttering about creating, ‘Hunger Games’ or Seminoles all year,” commented Reiter. “Listen to the music, get wrapped up in the art exhibits and stroll the posters. April 16 will truly be a Showcase of what you do here.” 

Printed programs featuring a full schedule will be available at the symposium. For more information on undergraduate research at Stetson, visit www.stetson.edu/other/research, or contact Dr. Kimberly Reiter, director of Showcase, at (386) 822-7541, or by email ([email protected]).

by Sarah Taylor, senior