On Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, 2022, Wright College held its 10th Student Research and Creative Colloquium.
Faculty from different departments came together to unify students with this academic seminar. Professor Natasha Todorovich led the event this year, with help from many faculty members who all came together to pull this event off.
The Colloquium started off on a strong beat on Wednesday, November 30, 2022, as the English 102 class participating had a discussion on film and censorship – the same topic the class was centered around. The students used their individual research papers on film and censorship to guide their discussion.
When asked to respond to a newspaper article written in 1957 about censorship, professor Michael Petersons’ students had a lot to say. One student mentioned that “Censorship was decided on the basis of religion and decently. Morals in Catholicism has influenced film topics. We have shifted our values on what is and is not controversial. Transparency within filmmakers and a collaborative process is important. Perspective changes your direction and what you believe," when discussing the morals behind censorship.
Later on Wednesday, November 30, 2022, Professor Merry Mayer’s Honors International Relations Political Science 204 class presented their group presentations on the global migration crisis and refugees' stories through the Student Research and Creative Scholarship Colloquium. The students presented their project with a physical poster board and each presenter shared a symbolic object to represent their topic.
When the topic of the Arabian Peninsula, more specifically Syria and Yemen, was brought up, one of the objects a student brought in was a pair of glasses. The story of a seven-year-old girl, a Syrian refugee, was used to explain the symbolism of the glasses. The girl’s country is in crisis and the world is changing while she lost her glasses. The speaker quotes the girl, “Can you image? It's all blurry and I’m in a whole new world” when demonstrating the heartbreaking reality of the refugee crisis.
Professor Merry Mayer gave her comment on the rewarding sense as a faculty member seeing her students talk at the colloquium exclaiming how incredible it was to see “how much knowledge they had accumulated on the topic”. Mayer furthers her excitement of getting students involved in academia by having her students display a museum-like exhibit of their projects across Wright’s campus.
On the second day of The Student Research and Creative Scholarship Colloquium, Honors English 101 students were asked to weigh in on ways to address their aims and goals in education, as well as how to describe their pursuit of learning in their application essays. Students in Professor Vincent Bruckert's class pulled from the several essays they had written on academic growth in order to participate in the discussion.
The Student Research and Creative Scholarship Colloquium was capped off after Dr. Doris Espiritu’s students weighed in on three more topics. These topics regarded self-efficacy and comfort zones, pursuing STEM as well as strengthening it through community, and ending the day with a discussion on the development of an app to create an effective mentor-mentee match.
Wright Times staffer Steph Brooks also contributed to this article.
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