“Papers, posters and performances—oh my!” Students and faculty are invited to come share in Ouachita’s academic achievement at Scholars’ Day on April 27. This year, Scholars’ Day will serve the Ouachita community in two different ways. First, students will showcase their hard work to their fellow classmates and professors. Second, Scholars’ Day will act as a miniature Tiger Day for future Ouachita students who will be part of the Carl Goodson Honors Program. These incoming students will get to see the talent within each school of the university, as well as the amount of support scholars receive from fellow classmates.
It’s a great day for visitors to come to campus and get a feel for all OBU has to offer,” said Dr. Barbara Pemberton, director of the Carl Goodson Honors Program.
While Scholars’ Day is a campus-wide celebration of academic achievement, it began in the natural sciences in 2000. Dr. Joe Jeffers and Dr. Tim Knight started a summer undergraduate research program and decided students in every school should have an opportunity to take part in sharing their hard work with the rest of Ouachita. After inviting students in each school to participate, the first Scholars Day took place in 2001.
“Shared enthusiasm and results were factors from the beginning. When students get a chance to show what they have done, it is exciting to them and, hopefully, inspiring to others,” said Jeffers, professor of chemistry and pre-medical studies. Initially, Scholars’ Day inspired the Ouachita community through oral and poster presentations, but now includes performance-based presentations as well.
One of the presentations at Scholars’ Day this year will come from Ethan Edwards’ research paper for his Child and Adolescent Development class. Before he was even given the rubric for the assignment, Edwards knew he wanted to research the effects cohabitation and divorce have on children. After spending weeks researching this topic and compiling the latest studies for his paper, Edwards’ hard work paid off.
“My paper meant a lot to me because I worked hard on it, but I was so honored when my professor asked if I wanted to present it at Scholars’ Day. I knew she saw something worth presenting, which is really exciting,” said Edwards, a sophomore secondary education/history major. Edwards will not only discuss his research and conclusion from his paper, but will also illustrate the point of his paper using a mirror.
“What the mirror represents will be a surprise, but I think anyone who watches my presentation will truly see why this is a topic [that] is so important for parents and educators.”
Another presentation at Scholars’ Day will come from Krystal Parker’s paper about women in Judaism. She originally wrote her paper to accompany her bar mitzvah presentation in Dr. Pemberton’s world religion class. After reading Parker’s paper and listening to her give a brief excerpt to the class, Pemberton wanted Parker’s name added to the list of presenters.
“I was super excited when Dr. Pemberton asked me to present my paper, and a little nervous, to be honest,” said Parker, a Christian studies major.
While Parker’s class assignment was to write about any topic in Judaism, she was intrigued by how Orthodox Judaism views and restricts women.
“The more I researched women in Judaism, the more interesting I found it to be. I think people can expect to gain a better understanding of why females have so many rules and restrictions in Orthodox Judaism from my presentation,” Parker said.
Although these are only two out of over 100 presentations, students can expect to see a wide variety of topics and illustrations at Scholars’ Day.
“The presentations of work by students from every school include Honors theses, research posters and papers, theatre performances, artwork, and a musical recital,” Pemberton said.
Within these broad categories, students will discuss their research on specific projects such as dietetics, the Sundance Film Festival and how religion plays into Hollywood movies. Scholars will begin to present their projects after lunch on Wednesday, April 27. Presentations will take place in the Walker Conference Center, Young Auditorium, McClellan classrooms, McBeth Recital Hall and Verser Theater. Everyone is invited to come celebrate these scholars and take part in recognizing Ouachita’s academic achievement.
