Author: Sommer Hamilton
This year, the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) invited more students from Occidental than from Harvard, Caltech, USC, UCLA and Berkeley combined. The mission of the NCUR is “to promote undergraduate research, scholarship and creative activity done in partnership with faculty or other mentors as a vital component of higher education.” The 34 students invited this year with their mentors set a school record, breaking last year’s school record of 25 invited students.
Those invited are sophomores, juniors and seniors representing a wide range of majors. Presentations range from astronomy major Emma Crow-Willard’s (sophomore) “Anaerobic Spore Detection by use of TB3+-DPA Luminescence” to junior CTSJ major Shoshone Johnson’s “The Metaphysics of the Cul-de-Sac.”
The conference took place from April 10-12 at Salisbury University in Salisbury, Maryland. Over 2,800 students and faculty from about 350 institutions attended this year’s conference. The NCUR conference first began in 1987; Oxy has been involved since 2005, sending 89 students over the past four years.
Religious studies major Erin Conley (sophomore), whose presentation was entitled “Exploring Punishment, Contingency and Selfhood in Hell,” did not know what to expect from the conference. “I thought it would be similar to SCCUR, but it was much better. More people came to the presentations, asked questions and were willing to share their own ideas. There was also more variety, even within disciplines, which was nice,” Conley said.
She elaborated that the best part about the conference was seeing other people genuinely interested about their academic pursuits. “So often school is made up of requirements that don’t inspire passion, but NCUR seemed more like the learning environment I imagine graduate school to be like,” Conley said. “It had a completely different vibe, because everyone was interested in and knowledgeable about their subject matter, and people were very supportive of each other.”
Unfortunately, Crow-Willard did not have the same experience. “I got the idea from some student presenters that they weren’t doing research they were passionate about, which does somewhat take away from the enjoyment aspect, even for the audience member/viewer,” she said.
The conference did a good job of facilitating communication between participants. “It was great fun being able to meet people from other universities doing similar research, and even people I hadn’t yet met at Oxy who were also participating in the conference,” Crow-Willard said. “I attended a improv workshop and improv show, both put on by the improv team at Salisbury University, which was a fun way to meet some Salisbury students.”
Overall, the conference met student expectations, and the students involved encourage others to apply next year.
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