By Abbie Steinly, Staff writer
Students from the class of 2018 were given the ability to present their research, scholarly and creative projects to friends, family and faculty at Seniors Scholars Day on Tuesday April 24.
This all-day event began with welcome remarks from university President Jonathan Green in Mellon Lounge, then consisted of students’ poster displays, oral presentations of their research, musical performances and graphic design art shows in the Cunningham Center for Art and Music.
This day for seniors has been a tradition for the campus for over 30 years. It is currently supported by the Office of the Provost and Career Development Center. In previous years it was hosted by the University Chapter of the American Association of the University of Professors and by the Lindback Foundation.
The poster displays were set up in Mellon Lounge of Degenstein Campus Center and the oral presentations took place in Benjamin Apple Meeting Rooms. All were welcome to view the displays and listen to the seniors speak.
Many students came out to support their classmates presenting their research.
“I wasn’t expecting there to be so many people in the room when I presented. Even President Green was there,” senior Christina Martin said.
Martin is a political science, public policy and Spanish triple major and presented on the influence of Facebook on college-aged students’ perceptions of political candidates.
“I prepared to present through a semester long research project with a political science professor and through the creation of a survey distributed to Susquehanna students,” Martin said.
She has been working on this project since January.
Students from a variety of majors presented their work at the event.
There was research presented by education majors, science majors, psychology majors and more.
Biochemistry major, Joann Butkus, presented on her research which “investigated the interactions of metal complexes (molecules made by a collaborator) with different types of DNA,” according to Butkus.
Despite having a professor alongside her and there to help guide her, Butkus was proud of the work she accomplished on her own.
“I’m really proud that I developed the project pretty independently. My research professor told me what we wanted to investigate and our methods, but I designed the protocol, revised it, and figured things out along the way pretty much all by myself,” Butkus said.
However, she did face a few challenges along the way. One of the hardest ones was being able to present a science research project to some non-science audience members.
“The biggest challenge was explaining the science to my audience in an understandable manner. Some people who came by were not science majors, so I had to communicate my findings in a way everyone could understand,” Butkus said.
Overall, Senior Scholars Day was able to showcase the senior class and the hard work they’ve done over the years here at Susquehanna.
“I loved Senior Scholars Day because it gave us a chance to show off our passions and all the really cool work that comes from Susquehanna students,” Butkus said.