Scholars Day, which was originally set to take place on April 8, has gotten a makeover due to COVID-19. What is usually a day full of presentations across campus is now fully digitalized on Blackboard with uploaded posters and mini-lectures.
Virtual Scholars Day went live on Monday, April 20, as a new organization on Blackboard. Anyone on campus has access to participant’s presentations and will be able to leave comments and provide feedback.
Jamie Edwards, project coordinator at the scholar and grants development office, said the change was to give students the option to present their research, rather than canceling Scholars Day all together.
“Obviously we didn’t really have a choice of having it in person, and we didn’t want to cancel it all together, mostly because there’s so many students in their classes currently that it’s a requirement for them in that class to be able to present their research in some way,” Edwards said. “So we wanted to give them an outlet to do so but also, so many students are just showcasing their work and it’s not required as well. And we don’t want to lose that just because of the pandemic, right? So how can we still showcase the amazing work that students are doing across campus, so we wanted to still go forward with having some option of participating for students.”
Some students, such as those in the Honors College, must present their research at a conference as a class or graduation requirement, and Edwards said this allows students whose conferences were canceled to still have this option to present.
Edwards accepted submissions through April 17, and the presentations have been uploaded to Blackboard where students, faculty and staff can access different topics.
“We’re going to open it to the whole campus because we want everybody to be able to view it,” Edwards said. “The only downside to that is that previously some of the public would come and view presentations, but there’s really no easy way of doing it so the public can also view it on a platform that students already know. So there’s a lot of different programs that I could have done a virtual scholars day where, say you were actually doing a presentation, I could schedule you time and you could come on and do your virtual presentation and get people in the room and watching you, but that would require a lot more testing and collaboration with students to do it, and I think it would be very stressful in an already stressful time. So we tried to keep it as easy and simple for students as possible.”
Edwards did anticipate a drop in presenters, as some students simply present for the opportunity, not necessarily for a grade.
“I’m definitely expecting a drop because of exactly the reasons like you said, some students were doing it because they wanted to, not because it was required,” Edwards said. “And I think that those students may be dropping simply because they’re already overwhelmed with moving all to online classes and other things going on. So I wouldn’t doubt if a lot of those students back out.”
Angela Tarricone, an English major with an education intent, was set to present her research at Scholars Day, but ultimately chose not to participate in the alternative.
Tarricone’s research, titled “Exploration or Exploitation? Wombs, Warriors, and Women in António Lobo Antunes’s ‘Os Cus de Judas,’” “examined the ways in which postmodern, postcolonial lusophone literature presents, discusses, and critiques war trauma in colonized African nations.” The paper was written for her capstone class with the theme “crossings: (re)visionary story & history, fiction & documentary,” which had students analyze ways authors have chosen to rewrite history.
“One of the professor’s specialties is lusophone literature (she was born in Lisbon, Portugal), so she chose exclusively lusophone literature for the curriculum,” Tarricone said. “Much of this literature discussed the Angolan War of Independence, so naturally, this historical context was embedded into my research. I did get to choose which novel out of the ten or so we read that I wanted to research and write on.”
Tarricone narrowed down her research to an analysis of António Lobo Antunes’s “Os Cus de Judas” due to her familiarity with psychoanalysis, black feminist theory and post colonial theory from a class she had already taken.
“I read theorists such as Jacques Lacan, bell hooks, Barbara Smith and Chandra Talpade Mohanty, theorists that write and research through these critical lenses,” Tarricone said. “These critical lenses were essential for proper, in-depth analysis of Antunes’s novel. This paper was an opportunity for me to delve deeper into these theories and apply them to a text that discussed war trauma in colonized African nations.”
Tarricone said she had the option of choosing a novel written by a Brazilian author but chose a Portuguese novel because “Portugal’s colonial status is both interesting and unique,” explaining it in terms of two characters from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”
“Portugal is both Prospero and Caliban – Prospero within the third-world African context and Caliban within the European context,” Tarricone said. “To simultaneously occupy both an elevated and marginalized space is intriguing, and I wanted to explore Portugal’s colonial position more in my research.”
Ultimately, Tarricone wrote her paper in eight weeks, slowly adding on as the end of the semester neared. Her professor asked her to present at Scholars Day the last week of classes in the fall semester. However, Tarricone decided not to partake in virtual Scholars Day for various reasons.
“I chose not to participate for the English department because I felt my research would be too complex and difficult to explain over a PowerPoint with or without voiceover,” Tarricone said. “I felt that I would have to put too many words on each slide for the presentation to make sense to the viewer. Also, I enjoy presentations and interaction with an audience, and presenting virtually would have taken away from that aspect.”
Tarricone was also set to “discuss the ways in which secondary English teachers can use young adult literature to practice culturally responsive pedagogy and incorporate diversity in the ELA curriculum” for the education department, but the panel was moved to Diversity Day in the fall of 2020.
Regardless, Tarricone thought the alternative was a good idea.
“People look forward to presenting their research and work really hard preparing for it, so I’m glad they didn’t simply cancel it,” Tarricone said. “It’s also a good addition to a resume to say that you represented your department during a research-based event, so it’s great that they found a way to hold Scholar’s Day without in-person gatherings.”
While Tarricone’s research is not live on Blackboard, it is available in the Digital Commons. Tarricone was chosen to be published after winning the library essay contest, which came with a cash prize.
“When I submitted the essay, I thought it was just a cash prize; I didn’t know publication came with it,” Tarricone said. “This was a huge deal for me, as it’s my first publication. Another professor I have has been encouraging me for two semesters to look into publishing my work, so I was very excited to email him about this. It feels like a great accomplishment. Teachers who teach writing should write themselves and continue their identity as a writer even after they become employed at a school. Our kids deserve the best education, and I want to improve my writing skills for them by continuing to publish my work.”
Edwards anticipated new submissions, too, such as Honors College students who were set to present at a different conference that was ultimately canceled. On top of that, a requirement for Honors College students is to present a thesis, so many students needed this alternative.
Haylee Cogovan, an arts for children major with a concentration in dance studies, was set to present at Scholars Day with a poster presentation, as she needed to create a thesis in order to graduate with the Honors College. Her research focuses on creating dance integration professional developments for teachers.
“Dance integration is the use of the art form, dance, to engage students in a creative process while connecting to another subject area,” Cogovan said. “Students are meeting objectives that connect with dance and the other subject area.”
Educators will teach a dance concept and another subject area and then bring the two together to create a dance integrated lesson, Cogovan explained.
Cogovan’s thesis had a few objectives; it was a great opportunity for her to learn how to create professional developments, it allowed her to learn more about arts integration and it allowed her to put the professional developments she created out for other teachers to use.
Cogovan said the idea for creating dance-integrated lessons stemmed from a lack of arts integration in the school districts she has worked in.
“Throughout my time here at Brockport, I was involved with different programs and was a substitute at different districts,” Cogovan said. “I got to go to a lot of different professional developments and never saw any that were about arts integration/dance integration. That was when the idea came to me.”
Focusing on dance integration, rather than an overarching theme of arts integration, simplified the process for teachers in a sense.
“I thought this was a great idea to begin with because teachers who are taking this professional development can focus just on the dance art form and how to use it in the classroom intertwined with different subjects, instead of having to learn dance, visual arts, theatre and music all in one professional development,” Cogovan said.
Cogovan decided to present her thesis virtually in part because it was a requirement for her but also because she was unable to test her professional developments with actual participants. She thought presenting virtually could give students a prospective on how to use dance integrations.
While presenting her thesis online is different to what she was expecting for Scholars Day, Cogovan thought the virtual alternative was a good idea.
“I think that it is a great opportunity,” Cogovan said. “I am happy that I still got to share my Honors Thesis because I had been working so hard on it. I think the college made the right choice having it digitally.”
Cogovan’s research, along with a number of other students’ work, can be found on Blackboard under the organization Scholars Day until Wednesday, May 13.
Originally published as an online exclusive for The Stylus.
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