How can I help encourage participation in the annual Student Academic Conference?
I hear the word research used in SAC literature. Is SAC only for social and natural science students? Certainly not! This continues to be the biggest misconception about the SAC. The SAC welcomes presentations from across campus. Presentations could be a feasibility study that a business or construction management student completes as part of a capstone, a lesson an education student creates and presents to the audience, in addition to original and secondary research in any field of study. One presentation last year was on the history of Native American Fancy Dance, complete with a riveting performance by the presenter in full costume and accompanied by live music.
Is SAC only for undergraduates? As the graduate programs have grown on campus, the SAC has worked with Graduate Studies to make sure they are included. SAC has dropped the word undergraduate from promotional materials. While graduate students may have more venues for presenting than undergraduates, we feel that the SAC offers a great opportunity for graduate students to present their research in a more comfortable setting.
I would like to integrate SAC into my class. Do you have any suggestions? Many professors make an assignment for their classes to attend the conference. Since the list of presentations is in a sortable database, professors can screen these by department to find projects appropriate for their class. Many professors then assign a short writing assignment on the presentations that the students view. Some professors integrate presenting at SAC into their class as a regular classroom assignment, as an extra credit assignment, or simply by encouraging students to further polish a particularly strong class project.
