On April 6, Professor Laurie Dashnau and five students selected by the English and Writing Department will travel to the University of North Carolina at Asheville to present research at the annual National Council for Undergraduate Research conference (NCUR).
In 2011, Dashnau led a group of five Houghton students to present the NCUR conference, which was hosted by Ithaca College, and is thrilled to be able to offer this opportunity to a new group of students. This year’s trip was made possible with money from Houghton’s Van Gorden Chair, which provides funding for a variety of collaborative projects in the fields of English, Writing, and Communication.
The five students selected for the program have spent the last two semesters pursuing independent studies alongside Dashnau, in which they investigated a topic related to the study of English and composed a research paper. The students then adapted their paper into a 15-minute oral presentation. These brief presentations are the culmination of a seven-month exploration of their topics, which range from literary analysis to psychological study to writing methodology.
Sponsored by the Council for Undergraduate Research, the NCUR conference is an interdisciplinary affair, showcasing student projects in the sciences and humanities as well as the visual and performing arts. Reflecting this diversity, this year’s conference will feature plenary speakers like David George Haskell, biologist and writer whose work blends ecological research with the long tradition of contemplative nature writing, and Bryant Terry, an award-winning culinary educator who has written extensively on nutrition and food justice.
“In general,” Dashnau said, “I think that the wider one’s audience is the more one realizes the importance of gearing one’s work toward people with a variety of interests and from a diversity of backgrounds.” She emphasized the flexibility to adapt one’s message to suit a specific audience is increasingly necessary in an today’s diverse academic environment.
In Asheville, Jonan Pilet ’17 will be presenting his piece “Dahlian Villain Creation: A Proven Methodology for Producing Compelling Postmodern Villains—or, How to Make Villains the Roald Dahl Way,” an examination of Dahl’s method of character creation. Kimberly Logee ’17 will focus closely on the fiction-writing process with her piece “Adapting the ‘Snowflake’ Novel- Writing Method in Order to Write Literary Fiction.” Carina Martin ’18 will be giving a presentation titled “Love in the Dark: Mentalities of Fear in Wide Sargasso Sea,” an exploration of . Jessica Guillory ’16 will speak on “Adolescent Identity in Young Adult Fiction: A True Portrayal?” Which aims to explore “the processes of identity formation experienced by teenage characters in young adult fiction.” Sophia Ross ’17 will present “From the Home Front to the War Front: Women Writing Anti-War Literature in the Twentieth Century,” which she describes as an examination “of the treatment of female characters in three novels about war written by women.”
Dashnau places a high value on presenting at a conference outside one’s customary academic environment. She pointed out that a successful presentation was the culmination of “taking a paper and turning it into a presentation vis a vis visuals, reconsidering the structure of the work, and engaging people more through questions and answers,” all of which are invaluable skills. Carrying off a presentation at a major academic conference, in front of a large audience, requires a combination of solid writing talent and aptitude in communication, both of which are quickly becoming indispensable assets in the workplace. “And it definitely has a fringe benefit,” Dashnau offered. “A healthy sense of pride in one’s work, confidence, and inspiration to take something beyond the college.”
This sense of pride is “I think the most rewarding part is seeing all of the different components of my research come together,” Guillory shared about her work. “It’s been quite satisfying to be putting the final touches on a project that I’ve been working on for almost a year.”