Over the past weekend the 15th annual Academic Excellence Conference was held at Keene State College. Parents, students and faculty gathered in both the David F. Putnam Science Center and the Lloyd P. Young Student Center to watch a series of presentations, performances, discussion panels and workshops.
This event takes place every year and is an opportunity for students to showcase their research and for viewers to expand their knowledge.
Students use this conference as an opportunity to develop their learning and to enhance their resume.
KSC student Kalie Randlett said she thought this conference was a great opportunity for her to improve her public speaking skills in front of an audience.
Tim Smith / Photo Editor
“It really teaches you how to meet deadlines, it teaches you public speaking skills, it also gets you really close with your mentor and it allows you to focus on something that you really care about,” Randlett said. Her two-year-long project taught her to work hard and she is grateful for her experience, she said.
“I’ve done the research for it, and so it was really a good way to highlight skills on my resume at the same time . . . I really wanted to showcase all of the work that I’ve been doing. I wanted friends, family, advisors and professors to come and really see what I’ve been working on,” Randlett said.
In addition to all her hard work, she has become very close with her mentor here at KSC. Not only was she able to present at KSC, but also at the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges Conference [COPLAC] this past fall. She said the COPLAC is the regional undergraduate research conference.
Jamie Landau, assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Philosophy and Randlett’s mentor, also said she thinks this is a great experience for students. She said students could learn how to articulate their ideas in ways that are more accessible to others.
“I think it’s a really great experience to present to a public audience and that can only benefit a student when they are going to graduate and they need to interview with someone else and learn how to talk to different kinds of people,” Landau said.
Landau said she thinks this conference can benefit not only the students, but also the faculty and the general public. She said people come to this conference for many reasons.
“Faculty gets a good idea of what students are learning in other classes, [and] what are the current projects that are of [the] most interest to the current generation. I think the public and the parents can really see the evidence of what their kids have been doing for four years and really see how much they have grown,” Landau said. She also referred to this experience as a form of experiential education. She said it allows students to embody real learning.
Putting a student in a situation where they have to answer questions on the spot and present a year’s worth of research in only ten minutes can be beneficial for the real world, she said. “In some sense maybe students should participate in [it], audiences should go to it and the reason for it is to prepare them for what it’s like for after they walk out of here,” Landau said.
Robert Cayes is another KSC student who said he valued his experiences with this conference. Unlike Randlett, he was required to present for his rhetorical criticism class; however, he said his reward from the conference was just as great.
“It looks great on a resume. My professor loved it and he insisted that I present it here, so in his advice I did it ,and also in my own personal achievement I did it,” Cayes said.
He said this six-week process taught him responsibility and public speaking skills.
Overall, Cayes said he thought the Academic Excellence Conference was a success. He said the time slots were just right — the overall planning of this event was paid-off, in his mind.
Randlett agreed and said she would recommend this conference to anyone who is interested and looking to improve their skills or expand their knowledge.
Tara Levy can be contacted at tlevy@kscequinox.com
