Centre News

The 2010 Centre RICE Symposium took place last weekend.
All students, faculty, staff and friends of the College were invited
to attend.

Poster presentations cover everything from biology research to
“Implementing Social Change among Pet Owners,” above.

From Thursday, April 15, to Sunday, April 18, Centre College held the third annual RICE Symposium, an event in which students present results from Research, Internships and Creative Endeavors.

More than 150 students participated in this year’s Symposium. Making up the audience were professors, fellow students, alumni, staff and interested members of the local community.

“RICE is a great opportunity for the students to show off the products of their hard work in a professional setting to an interested audience,” says assistant professor of psychology Melissa Burns-Cusato, one of the coordinators of this year’s event.

During the Symposium, students presented their academic works in one of four ways: paper presentations, poster presentations, exhibitions (typically for artwork) or performances.

During paper presentations, students gave 12-minute talks about their research, internship experiences or other academic pursuits. Poster sessions allowed students to create large-scale visual aids to display their findings. Those wishing to showcase their art were given space to do so, and students performing musical or theatrical shows were given 12 minutes to entertain their audiences.

“Students will spend anywhere from a couple months to two or three years working on their projects,” Burns-Cusato says. “But the benefits of the RICE experience don’t end with completion of one’s project. The process of preparing to present one’s work is almost as valuable as the completing the project itself.”

She adds that “many students underestimate the amount of thought and effort that are required for a quality presentation until they do it themselves. Since presentation skills are important for virtually all careers, this experience helps to prepare students for life after Centre. And, of course, RICE is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about scholarly activity in disciplines other than one’s major.”

Those attending the 2010 RICE Symposium were certainly be exposed to research in a wealth of disciplines. Past presentations have included everything from orations such as “An Empirical Investigation of the Success of Dale Earnhardt” and “The Science of Chocolate” to a performance of As You Like It to a poster presentation titled, “Mathematical Modeling of Fatty Acid Oxidation in Skeletal Muscle Cells Sheds new Light on Obesity.”