In a conference dominated by on-field competition and top-10 sports teams, a recent two-day student research conference hosted at the University of Virginia revealed the Atlantic Coast Conference's academic, side.
The second annual ACC Undergraduate Research Conference, which took place from April 13-14, brought together students from across the ACC to showcase their research projects in an effort to bolster academic ties among the conference's member schools.
The conference is part of the ACC's Inter-Institutional Academic Collaborative, an initiative started by the ACC presidents and funded with revenues from the ACC football championship game.
During the two-day conference, each student made a 15-minute presentation of their project, and also had the opportunity to listen to students' projects in academic fields ranging from medicine to public policy.
"Undergraduates are doing more and more research, and this is a terrific platform for our students to go out and present themselves. It's a way for other schools that might otherwise know Boston College by what transpires on the football field to see that this is a whole institution and it has whole other dimensions to it," said Donald Hafner, a professor of political science and the director of the University Fellowship Committee.
BC invited four of its top undergraduate researchers to attend the conference, including Rebecca Kraus, A&S '07; Marisa Cochrane, A&S '07; Alexis Rife, A&S '07; and Lauren Sottile, A&S '08.
Hafner selected the students to attend the conference after they were deemed the top students at BC's own research symposium earlier in the semester.
Kraus, whose project focused on literature written about Holocaust survivors, saw the conference as an opportunity not only to refine her project, but also to learn about other research fields.
"I really enjoyed being able to see the range of research in my discipline and in other disciplines. It was interesting to see what constitutes a project in different disciplines and learning about subjects I would otherwise never known about," said Kraus.
Rife, who researched the social behavior of diamondback terrapins in Massachusetts and had her initial findings published in undergraduate research journal Elements last year, agreed.
"There was no overlap of presentation times, which meant that we were able to see all of the presentations - something which I really appreciated since it's very interesting to see the kinds of research going on at other schools and by other students," said Rife in an e-mail.
Inspired by her experience at the conference, Kraus hopes to continue her project in graduate school and beyond. "It was useful to see what it's like to a conference of this type," said Kraus.
"It gave me the opportunity to make some contacts in the field at other schools, and it will definitely help me further my research."
The other students shared the sentiment that the conference will greatly enhance their projects and their post-graduate studies. "It got me interested again; it was nice to be able to catch up.
Ultimately, it will have the most effect in graduate school," said Cochrane, whose research project examined how the current energy crisis is affecting the foreign policies of China and India.
Professor Robert Taggart, a coordinator of BC's delegation to the conference, pointed out that perhaps the most beneficial aspect of the conference is its ability to network students to each other and other experts in the field across the ACC schools.
"It is good for the students to meet some of their counterparts from other schools and share their experiences. It gives the students a chance to get together and talk in their disciplines as well as across disciplines," said Taggart.
The ACC undergraduate research conference is just one of a number of initiatives taken up by the ACC to foster academic networking within the conference.
The conference also offers doctoral student exchanges between institutions as well as scholarships for students to study abroad.
Hafner hopes that over the years, the conference will expand to include more students over a variety of different academic fields. Citing last year's conference at Clemson, which invited more than a dozen students from each school,
Hafner stated that he would like to find a medium between the small delegation this year and the large delegation which went last year.
With a rotating schedule, each university in the ACC will have the opportunity to host the conference, including BC.
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