At Whitman College’s annual Undergraduate Conference this year, 218 Whitman students will be presenting their scholarship to the community. The presentation topics range from the impact of climate change on side-blotched lizard reproduction to the social and psychological implications of Kanye West’s latest album. The conference is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, April 12 and will last all day.
“The overarching aim of the conference is to celebrate with the entire community the scholarship, intellectual energy and creativity of Whitman’s students. It’s a day to showcase their learning, to let them lead the class, as it were, and teach the rest of us,” said Keith Raether, the director of the office of fellowships and grants and also a member of the Undergraduate Conference Organizing Committee.
While the conference as a whole has not changed significantly from last year’s model, there are some interesting new presentations.
“The conference schedule and format seem to work well for everyone, so we haven’t tried to reinvent any wheel,” said Raether. “That said, this is the first year that you’ll see 26 students demonstrating the elegant principles of physical chemistry through modern dance.”
The number of Whitman students presenting at the conference this year has also increased, from 185 last year to 218. The size of Whitman’s undergraduate conference is one of the features that make it unique.
“I think Whitman is fairly unique, certainly among liberal arts colleges, in the size and scope of its undergraduate conference. I’m aware of smaller events within a particular discipline or limited to a series of small events stretched, say, over two or three evenings,” Raether said. “I don’t know of other conferences that supplant classes for an entire day, range across all disciplines through presentations and performances and involve so many students.”
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Presentation Topic: Sustainable Success: Sustainable Agriculture Internships in Guatemala
Student Presenters: Natalie Jamerson, Maggie Appleton, Algeria Olmedo
Faculty Advisor: Phil Brick
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What is your Undergraduate Conference presentation about?
Our presentation is an account of our experience interning for a sustainable agriculture [non-governmental organization] in Guatemala last summer as members of Whitman Direct Action. We traveled to small, rural Xacana to introduce practices that would increase the environmental sustainability of the community to their economic benefit. This included building worm composting, creating a fertilizer test plot and initiating an environmental curriculum at the local school.
What did you enjoy most about completing your project?
The most enjoyable aspect was coming up with achievable small successes within the community. We carried out a very well-received transformation of the local student garden and began to see indicators of community acceptance of our technologies and ideas in the end.
What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
The most challenging thing was continuing to put our best efforts in and work exhaustively hard on days when we saw no immediate and tangible benefits for the community; having to entirely reform our goals and expectations in the middle of the project tested our dedication and willpower.
Why should students come to your presentation?
To hear from peers about what the day-to-day reality of working for an NGO is like will give students insight into work they might complete for organizations such as the Peace Corps or any given NGO volunteering job in the future.
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Presentation Topic: Optimizing the Sugar Battery
Student Presenter: Ross Eustis
Faculty Advisor: Allison Calhoun
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What is your Undergraduate Conference presentation about?
My presentation is about a novel, eco-friendly battery powered by glucose and other simple sugars.
What is the most interesting thing that you discovered or concluded?
I realized how difficult it is to manipulate nature. The oxidation (breaking down) of glucose to generate and store energy is used in every known organism. We tried to mimic the process (glycolysis) in the form of a battery … with very limited success so far.
What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
It’s always challenging to stay optimistic and inspired when 95 percent of what you do doesn’t end up working. I tested over 50 electron mediators, and only two worked well enough to actually give meaningful (optimized) results.
Why should students come to your presentation?
My presentation takes a process fundamental in all living organisms and engineers it into something tangible that would potentially impact the lives of people on a daily basis.
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Presentation Topic: Liquid Love: Romance and Status in the Wine Industry
Student Presenter: Gretchen Swanson
Faculty Advisor: Michelle Janning
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What is your Undergraduate Conference presentation about?
My presentation will cover a lot of ground, including fundamental differences between European vintners and American vintners, how being intimately involved in the wine industry is much the process of dating or marriage, as well as speak to the perception of the wine industry versus the reality, kind of a “behind the scenes” look at the wine industry.
What is the most interesting thing that you discovered or concluded?
Maybe, just like dating or love, we often like the idea of a product or a person much better than the reality of the person or product itself. It happens all the time in the wine world, participating in wine culture to establish a certain status when in reality the experience becomes much more about the aesthetics of the wine industry rather than the wine itself.
What did you enjoy most about completing your project?
I both hate and love the fact that the more I know, the more I don’t know. The wine industry is such a vast and complex culture. And of course, dating and love are equally dumbfounding.
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Presentation Topic: Deservingness in Black and White: Media Constructions of Natural Disaster Victims at Home and Abroad
Student Presenter: Hanna Ory
Faculty Advisor: Jeanne Morefield and Susanne Beechey
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What is your Undergraduate Conference presentation about?
My presentation comparatively examines U.S. mainstream media constructions of South Asian Tsunami (2004) impoverished victims and Hurricane Katrina (2005) impoverished victims. I found that those affected by the tsunami are legitimized as authentic victims while those affected by the hurricane were rejected as genuine sufferers.
What was the most challenging aspect of the project?
I actually really didn’t expect the constructions to be quite as polarizing and overwhelmingly evident as they really were. There were so many different examples of these polarized social constructions, which made me really sad and kind of emotionally drained for the ways that these two victim populations were discursively exploited.
Why should students come to your presentation?
I believe that my findings can be applied to the situation in Japan and offer an explanation as to why the disaster was constructed by the U.S. media in the ways that it was. I hope that my project will challenge my audience to critically examine the ways that disasters, humanitarian responses, and more generally poverty, are constructed in the media and to consider what broader interests these constructions might be serving.
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