Jackson State University students displayed their research skills in posters, panel discussions and oral presentations during the annual Undergraduate Research Conference at the Student Center on Thursday.
“This is the fifth year the conference has been held,” said Dr. Evelyn J. Leggette, associate vice president for Academic and Student Affairs.
The conference started out with only a core of students and departments, she said. A goal all along was to involve the whole campus, “and we have reached that milestone,” she noted.
From only a relative handful of undergraduates to now hosting more than 135 students, the conference is well on its way toward achieving its goal of improving scholarly research.
The conference is also inviting other universities to be involved, including this year having a delegation from Prairie View A&M University, said Edna Caston, coordinator, Center for Undergraduate Research.
Not only do conferences like this improve students’ minds, but they also serve to uplift society, said Dr. James C. Renick, provost and senior vice president for Academic and Student Affairs.
Universities must have research to ensure that students have an intellectual point of view, he told the conference. But it goes beyond that crucial academic responsibility.
“We live in a world that is data rich and question poor,” Renick said. Of all the technological systems providing ever more information, analysis is lacking. Asking the right questions is essential, he said, “to creating the type of society that we want.”
Introduced as the university’s “cyber guru,” Dr. Robert Blaine, dean of Undergraduate Studies and CyberLearning, called the conference “a celebration of 21st century research,” representing “what the university is truly about.”
Perhaps more important, he said, such initiatives teach students “a thinking process that will help them the rest of their lives.”
The Center in collaboration with the Summer Bridge Program and the Richard Wright Center have incorporated a research component into the activities of incoming freshman to introduce them to various components of research that rely on new technologies.
This year’s conference boasted of high-tech information systems bolstering the presentation of research. As a result of its success in cyberlearning, Jackson State was named an Apple Distinguished School for 2013-15, one of only a handful in the nation. Blaine pointed out iTunes codes that participants could access through their iPhones to follow the sessions.
Presentation topics ranged from current social issues (e.g., “Should Student Athletes Receive Monetary Compensation for Athletic Services?”) to the purely scientific (e.g., “Development of Full Contact Flexible Mold for Enhancing Microbial Induced Calcite Precipitation in Engineering Applications”).
Students who are interested in doing research can call the Center and be paired with faculty doing research,” Caston said.
Leggett thanked Dr. Tor A. Kwembe, professor and chair, Department of Mathematics and Statistical Sciences, who is her co-investigator for the Title III program that funds the Center. The five-year funding cycle for it is ending, Leggett said, but the Center “will go on.”
For more information, contact Caston at 601-979-0839 or edna.e.caston@jsums.edu or see the Center’s webpage: https://www.jsums.edu/cur/