Holy Cross Academic Conference to Showcase Student Work

300 students will present research and independent work with faculty mentors

The College of the Holy Cross will host Academic Conference 2008 from April 23 through April 26. The four-day conference is designed to provide students from a broad spectrum of academic disciplines with an opportunity to present the results of their independent work. The programs, projects, poster sessions, and performances by students are the results of student work over one or two semesters under the guidance of faculty members.

Approximately 300 Holy Cross students will be involved in the conference this year. Academic Conference 2008 is free and open to the public.

Representing a fraction of the independent and group-project opportunities of which Holy Cross students have taken advantage this year, the conference includes works from the arts, social sciences, humanities and natural sciences. Students will present an extraordinary array of topics: ranging from the anthropological study of television’s marginalization of the lower class; to immigration and its discontents; to understanding the possible advantages and disadvantages of using a social networking Web site; to research and field work in the deaf community; to Shakespeare and the American political stage; to protein splicing.

The conference will open with a lecture by this year’s Fenwick Scholar. The Fenwick Scholar Award is one of the College’s oldest and most prestigious academic distinctions. Departmental nominees design, with several advisors, a program of study leading to a significant research or creative project that will be an entire senior-year curriculum.

Ordinarily, one Fenwick Scholar is selected each year after intense reviews. This year’s scholar is Brenton R. Franklin, who has spent the academic year working with chemistry professor Richard Herrick. His lecture, “Using Organometallic Chemistry to Develop Imaging Agents,” will be presented at 4 p.m. in the Rehm Library on Wednesday, April 23.

A reception, open to the entire Holy Cross community, will follow the lecture at 5 p.m. in Moran Lounge, on the 4th floor of Smith.

The conference is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Dean of the College.

Related Information:

• Academic Conference 2008 [PDF]