Stetson University will cancel classes on Wednesday, April 18, for its all-day Stetson Showcase, featuring 150 student presentations of their undergraduate research and creative projects from across the DeLand campus’s academic disciplines.

All student presentations and the keynote lecture are free and open to the public. Stetson Showcase will conclude with the 14^th annual Festival of the Moving Image at the Athens Theatre and theSchool ofMusic CMENC Broadway Revue benefit concert in Lee Chapel that evening.

Furman University Professor Angela C. Halfacre, who teaches earth and environmental sciences and political science and also directs Furman’s David E. Shi Center for Sustainability, will give the keynote lecture, “Conservation Culture and Sustainability Science: Studying Problems, People and Place,” at 6:15 p.m. in the Stetson Room of the Carlton Union Building, 421 N. Woodland Blvd., DeLand.

Stetson’s academic symposium has been held every spring since 1999; this is the second year in a row classes have been canceled to allow for uninterrupted participation by students, faculty and staff.

“This is a celebration of what Stetson is all about – the creativity and academic spirit that research brings,” said Associate Professor of History Dr.Kimberly Reiter, who coordinates the symposium. “There is nothing more stimulating to students’ academic experience than to allow them to create independent research…to do something beyond an ordinary term paper. We have students thinking way out of the box!”

About 150 Stetson undergraduates will participate, presenting their senior research papers, research posters and art portfolios, making oral presentations, performing and giving power-point presentations. The presentations will be held in seven venues on the Stetson campus throughout the day from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

In addition, the 14^th annual FMI: Festival of the Moving Image will be from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Athens Theatre,124 N. Florida Ave., in downtown DeLand. This year the Digital Arts program and student organization GHM: Green Hat Media will expand their usual video and animation festival to also include interactive art, sound art, audio visual performance and music all created by Stetson students. The Festival of the Moving Image is free and open to the public, and the schedule is as follows:

• 7 p.m. – Doors open, interactive art works and a music listening station in the lobby, live music performance
• 7:30 p.m. – Video and Animation screening featuring video and animations by Stetson students
• 8:30 p.m. – Screening of Senior Projects by Kayla Gomme and Brent Walker
• 8:45 p.m. – Awards Ceremony

Also, the School of Music will present the CMENC Broadway Revue at 7:30 p.m. in Lee Chapel inside Elizabeth Hall,421 N. Woodland Blvd.Admission is $5 for all. The concert is a benefit for the Collegiate Music Educators National Conference.

All students in the College of Arts & Sciences at Stetson do 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. Participating students compete for research awards that include a cash prize.

Just some of the research titles for this year’s symposium include The Philosophy of Harry Potter; Neurotheology: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Religion and the Role of the Temporal Lobes in Religiousity; Analysis of Video Game Related Violence; Reproduction revisited in an invasive catfish; Disney Princess: The Brand; The Inception Period of the Civil Rights Movement: A Look into the Discourse of Mary McLeod Bethune; and Algorithmic Composition: Music Generation through the use of Rubik’s Cube Solution Algorithms.

“It allows students to see themselves as scholars,” Reiter said. “Our students are doing research that is normally done in graduate school. They’re able to go to grad school and blow the competition away.”

Community members are invited to sample the great variety of student work being presented. Venues on campus will include the Rinker Fieldhouse in the Hollis Center, 600 N. Bert Fish Drive; Elizabeth Hall/John E. Johns Room 315, 421 N. Woodland Blvd.; Flagler Hall Room 324, 434 N. Woodland Blvd.; duPont-Ball Library, lower level, Room 25, accessed from the Nemec Courtyard on the north side of the library, 134 E. Minnesota Ave.; the new Science Center Room 257, 136 E. Minnesota Ave.; Rinker Auditorium in the Lynn Business Center, 345 N. Woodland Blvd.; Presser Hall Room 132, 419 N. Woodland Blvd.; and the Homer and Dolly Hand Art Center, 139 E. Michigan Ave.

Printed programs featuring a full schedule will be available at the symposium. The full program is available on the symposium website at: https://www.stetson.edu/other/research/surcas.php.

For more information on undergraduate research at Stetson, visit www.stetson.edu/other/research.